Redheaded Jill

This story takes place post Korean War. A high school girl takes care of her sister and brother in her grandma’s home while her mom is in the US attending school. Her father was lost at sea in the war.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

This story is sweet. The main girl works so hard to protect her siblings and be a help to her grandma. She gets good grades and is known all over the neighborhood as a reliable person. Even though she knows that her dad is likely dead she raises the flags at her home every morning in hopes that he’ll find his way back to them.

At school she encounters a wild boy who is part of a school club. The school is planning to knock down their clubhouse building and the boys want to stop them.

As their paths continue to cross our lead suggests that the boys clean up the clubhouse to convince the school not to demolish it. She brings her friends and they start an overall makeover of the building.

The two grow close and she invites him to her house for a party. He sees a photo of her dad and his friends and he becomes upset. The boy goes home and confronts his dad, asking the name of his real father. The man explains that he and his wife lost a baby and soon after the girl’s dad arrived at their door with the boy. He said he needed to find a home for his son before leaving on his ship. He gives the man a family register and the baby.

Later at school the boy avoids his friend and she finally confronts him. He reveals that they are siblings and have to stop feeling the way they do.

Eventually they clean up the clubhouse and go to talk to the school’s chairman to convince him to visit the school before making his final decision about demolition.

The girl’s mother returns from America and she confronts her mom about her new found brother. Her mom says that when she was pregnant her husband came home with a baby. His friend had died at sea and his wife died in childbirth. He couldn’t bear to leave his best friend’s so in an orphanage so he adopted the baby without asking. The mom refused to take in the baby, so he gave the boy to his friend who had just lost a baby of his own.

So, big relief, the couple aren’t siblings so the romance isn’t taboo.

The boy’s father calls him and says the third man in the photo is at the harbor and can answer questions about the men who died at sea. They go to meet him and he confirms that they are in fact, not siblings.

The movie ends with the clubhouse being saved and the couple returning to land on his father’s small boat.

This movie was very sweet. I hoped that the dad would somehow find his way home, but that didn’t happen. Thankfully the lead couple aren’t truly siblings because that would have been uncomfortable.

I appreciate that there were no real villains in this story. Just circumstance. The girl’s family loved her, even though the mom pretty much abandoned them for years to attend school. And her siblings left most everything up to her (like cooking, cleaning, preparing meals for school, etc…) The grandma was kind and provided financially, but it felt like the oldest daughter was always afraid of upsetting her grandma somehow.

This is up there with The Wind Rises, it was enjoyable and somewhat historical, but I’m not sure I’ll feel the need to ever watch it again.

3/5 stars.