The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 British drama romance film directed by Bryan Forbes, based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Lynne Reid Banks. It tells the story of Jane Fosset, a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a cheap London boarding house, befriending a young man, Toby, in the building. The work is considered part of the kitchen sink realism school of British drama. The film reflected a trend in British films of greater frankness about sex and displays a sympathetic treatment of outsiders "unmarried mothers, lesbian or black" as well as a "largely natural and non-judgmental handling of their problems". As director, Forbes represents "a more romantic, wistful type of realism" than that of Tony Richardson or Lindsay Anderson.

Plot

A 27-year-old French woman, Jane Fosset, arrives alone at a run down boarding house in Notting Hill, London, moving into an L-shaped room in the attic. Beautiful but withdrawn, she encounters the residents of her house, each a social outsider in his or her own way, including a gay, black trumpeter.

Awards