I recently watched this again on TCM. The introductory comment said this was a movie about a boy and girl "falling in love". Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a movie about, loneliness, pain, and emotional desperation.
Pookie is the classic emotionally distressed outsider. Bright, witty, seeing through things ala Holden Caulfield, and is desperate need of emotional contact with another human being. She literally latches onto and pursues a boy who has no idea of what he's getting into and being a "normal person" is incapable of seeing just how needy and desperate she is; and more importantly he wants to lead an "average, everyday, life" and so is totally unable to fulfill her needs.
The movie also does a good job of showing how is is ostracized and treated with great cruelty by the "normal" girls who are her classmates.
What we really have in this movie is the origins of the "hippie" movement.
Pookie is the classic emotionally distressed outsider. Bright, witty, seeing through things ala Holden Caulfield, and is desperate need of emotional contact with another human being. She literally latches onto and pursues a boy who has no idea of what he's getting into and being a "normal person" is incapable of seeing just how needy and desperate she is; and more importantly he wants to lead an "average, everyday, life" and so is totally unable to fulfill her needs.
The movie also does a good job of showing how is is ostracized and treated with great cruelty by the "normal" girls who are her classmates.
What we really have in this movie is the origins of the "hippie" movement.