CARRIED AWAY (36)

Directed by: Bruno Baretto

Starring: Dennis Hopper, Amy Irving, Amy Locane

The Pitch: In the Midwestern heartland, a middle-aged schoolteacher gets involved with one of his students, a troubled teenage nymphet.

Theo Sez: Has "sensitive" etched on it from the opening credits, from the first bars of its mournful string score - and, unfortunately, has "TV movie" added to the definition from the first lines of down-on-the-farm dialogue ("Joey, get up! It's gone five o'clock already!"). Within those parameters it's entirely watchable, set in a seldom-seen rural America, though it's severely weakened by the decision to portray the teenage girl who gets involved with the middle-aged protagonist as a stunning-looking temptress who seduces the hapless teacher. It's a cheap shot, turning him into a victim and the film into a male weepie - surely she might've made more sense as a rather pathetic, bookish-looking girl who needed him almost as much as he needed her (which would also emphasise that it's her youth more than anything else which attracts him). Otherwise a very decent film, and in one scene considerably more than that; but really one is less likely to be affected by the emotions on view here than to remember it as the first (and hopefully only) film where someone orders - and actually drinks! - a glass of beer and tomato juice.