Jenny Agutter makes affection believable without making a fuss about it. We value that warmth most in An American Werewolf in London, where she gives a hurried romance more credibility than the writing earns.
Fi1m perspective
In An American Werewolf in London (1981), Jenny Agutter gives Nurse Alex Price a warmth that the film scarcely pauses to accommodate. She makes the attachment to David credible without turning every moment of affection into an occasion. We cared about the couple because she played that affection so plainly, despite how little time the writing allowed them. John Landis has a monster to attend to, and he attends to it thoroughly. Agutter is a good reason to wish he had been less impatient with the people.
Her early work was marked by youthful characters, with Bobbie Waterbury in The Railway Children (1970) a breakthrough part. Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971) took her towards more adult material. The Hollywood films continued that change, giving her Jessica 6 in Logan’s Run (1976) and Jill Mason in Equus (1977).
The reservation in the Landis film is about what Agutter has been given to work with. Naughton carries David’s bewilderment and fear, but the character acquires little depth once his central problem is established. Agutter keeps the romance believable for longer than the screenplay deserves, yet she cannot supply the missing time and development herself. We recommend the film readily for its painful horror and dry humour, while wishing some of the care spent on the creature had gone into this relationship. Her performance helps the film along; it also makes the neglect harder to overlook.
Television became a greater part of her work from the early 1990s, leading to the continuing role of Sister Julienne in Call the Midwife (2012). Later adaptations of The Railway Children have also brought her back to familiar material. For an introduction to what we value in her acting, though, we would still choose An American Werewolf in London. Be prepared to wish the screenplay had given her another scene.
Biography
Jenny Agutter is an English actress. Born on 20 December 1952 in Taunton, Somerset, she is the daughter of a British army officer and spent parts of her childhood abroad. She trained at Elmhurst Ballet School and began acting as a child, appearing in the BBC serial and 1970 film adaptations of The Railway Children, as well as Walkabout (1971) and the television film The Snow Goose (1971), for which she received an Emmy Award.
Her subsequent film roles include Jessica in Logan's Run (1976), Jill Mason in Equus (1977), for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Nurse Alex Price in An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Joanne Simpson in Child's Play 2 (1990). She has also appeared in The Avengers (2012) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014).
Since the early 1990s Agutter has worked extensively in British television, including a long-running role as Sister Julienne in Call the Midwife. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2012.
