Thought long and hard about this one. Given the present climate for the subject matter, even acknowledging that the film exists threatens to open a can of worms... which is precisely why art cannot be allowed to kowtow. The film exists, whatever anyone thinks of it, and that existence must be managed by those who find themselves faced with it, whatever perspectives they bring with them.
I saw this film when I was myself 16 years of age, with a date name Shannon, and whom I did not remain with long. We were not compatible. I remember that a lot of what I saw resonated with me deeply; I was only a year older than the "children" in this film, and did not see myself as a child when watching it. Others my own age were working jobs, earning incomes, putting money aside for university, making plans for the future and expanding our consciousness with the same investigations that take place in this film. I don't write this to argue that the film is this or that or any label we might care to put on it. I write this to say that at the time, I was consciously aware of what the film was depicting, what the message was, how it affected me personally and many of my friends. As such, I think it is ridiculous that anyone ever takes a stand that begins with, "These people are too young to know..." regardless of what follows that last word. I can think of a lot of 40+ somethings that are too "young" to comprehend the film's message. Being 15 or 16 is not an epistemic disability.
There were other films covering the same ground as this at the time, notably 1978's Pretty Baby, which in Alberta was rated 18+ (there was no national rating system at the time). I didn't see that until my parents did, at the Red Deer Drive-in, which we used to go visit on weekends during the summer; my parents cabin was 15 miles west of Red Deer, so occasionally, when we wanted to see a movie, we'd drive the distance and see what was there. Between 1976 and 1985, they used to run movies all night; sometimes we'd sit and watch four in a row, until the early dawn. My parents loved movies. They did not like Pretty Baby, which I saw when I was about 18. I didn't think much of it either.
There were other films covering the same ground as this at the time, notably 1978's Pretty Baby, which in Alberta was rated 18+ (there was no national rating system at the time). I didn't see that until my parents did, at the Red Deer Drive-in, which we used to go visit on weekends during the summer; my parents cabin was 15 miles west of Red Deer, so occasionally, when we wanted to see a movie, we'd drive the distance and see what was there. Between 1976 and 1985, they used to run movies all night; sometimes we'd sit and watch four in a row, until the early dawn. My parents loved movies. They did not like Pretty Baby, which I saw when I was about 18. I didn't think much of it either.
Little Darlings was not classified as adults-only in Alberta. Unlike Pretty Baby, it did not trade on sexual depiction or even explicit scenes; Porky's in 1981, a Canadian film, was far more explicit. While containing sexual themes and frank dialogue, Little Darlings is not, in fact, about sex as a practice. At no time is any dialogue given to the act itself, only to the expectation of the act and the consequence thereafter. This, as I remember from discussions of art, is how we are supposed to address a thing: identify what it is, identify how people comprehend it, describe the effect thereof. Sounds like an art film to me.
If anything, the film is unrestrained in its depiction of teenager viciousness, the performative aspects of cliques, the compression of pain inside oneself and how the stress of that is turned into a knife to hurt other people. In this regard, the teenagers depicted here are far more insidious that something more cartoonish like the Karate Kid; they are vastly less considerate than the foursome in Mean Girls. Here we see the steady, abiding urge of teenagers to self-protect, to redefine themselves instantly so as not to look like fools, or not to fit in, or not to look as though they want something too much. These characters do not speak their minds; they hedge, they protect their shame, they coddle their egos... and when it falls apart, it is because they find character within themselves and stand up. Not in the pleasantly fanciful way of Revenge of the Nerds, but in merely deciding to cease playing the game. It's brief, it comes at the end, it's lightly indulged (Hollywood cannot help being Hollywood)... but what matters is that it's there. At that time, that resonated with me.
Tatum O'Neal and Kristy McNichol were both struggling with the ghettos of their childhood acting careers. O'Neal plays against the type she established in The Bad News Bears. McNichol plays against the type she gained with the saccharine but successful TV show Family. Both ultimately succeeded in the early 80s with such projects... and both, for their own reasons, largely stepped away from the spotlight, though not entirely. Both continued to dabble, but never again had the notariety of this time.
A young Armande Assante has a difficult role here; if there are moments that would make a modern viewer's skin crawl, it would be his character's part — but honestly, there's nothing to read from within the film that convicts him. Matt Dillon is young and hunky; this is his second actor credit on IMDb. An extraordinarily young Cynthia Nixon appears here, long before growing up and joining Sex in the City. Adult actors barely register in the film at all; in most scenes, they are little more than scenery. The film is about the girls themselves, free of authority figures.
One small fun coincidence: at the summer camp where the girls attend, a short skit featuring Climbing over Rock Mountain of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, while McNichol's character Angel is miserable for plot reasons. Two years after Little Darlings, in 1982, McNichol would start in a spoof version of Penzance, called The Pirate.
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