Twenty-One (1991) – Nostalgia Central

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Like Darling – the saga of a model on the make that won Julie Christie an Oscar in 1965 – Twenty-one is a showcase for its star. And Patsy Kensit, former lead singer of Eighth Wonder and Mel Gibson’s lithesome bedmate in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), seizes her big moment.

Kensit is sensational as Katie, a whirling sexual dervish with a tough core of intelligence and wit.

A British office worker who has just relocated to the Big Apple, Katie makes her entrance in the bathroom.

Breaking the fourth wall and addressing the camera directly, Alfie-style, Katie says that she’s not looking for intimacy or eternal love (she’s only twenty-one), “just a straightforward fuck”.

When director and co-writer Don Boyd lets Katie cut loose with her observations on sex and the Nineties woman, the film is good spiky fun. But Boyd wants to go deeper and make a profound statement.

Katie’s relationships with her gay friend Baldie (Maynard Eziashi) and her Scottish junkie lover, Bobby (Rufus Sewell), are meant to give the film a tragic weight that it can’t – and needn’t – carry.

The film features costume designs co-created by the legendary, avant-garde British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

Katie
Patsy Kensit
Kenneth
Jack Shepherd
Jack
Patrick Ryecart
Baldie
Maynard Eziashi
Bobby
Rufus Sewell
Francesca
Sophie Thompson
Janet
Susan Wooldridge
Linda
Julia Goodman
Michael
Julian Firth
Marcus
Guy Oliver-Watts
Mr Metcalfe
Robert Bathurst
Gerald Morris
Ben Murphy
Agency Woman
Shelley Borkum
Bobby’s Aunt
Veronica Clifford
Bobby’s Father
Donald Tandy
Bobby’s Mother
Joan Campion
Pub Landlady
Maggie Norris
Fashion Editor
Tyger Kahn
Assistant Editor
Lolly Susi
Riverside Waiter
Anthony Gardner
Jack’s Wife
Rebecca Cardinale
Best Man
Kim Kindersley
Bride’s Father
Paul Arlington
Melissa
Anne Romyn