possible plot-hole?

Well, you missed something. When the girl tells Sam and his mother that she might be pregnant, she says something about how she does not know what the hell it's like to have a period. So I figure she thought she never had one.

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Yeah, in health class, they made it clear that you can get pregnant before having your first period. Having sex without using birth control is stupid in any situation.

Tomorrow's just your future yesterday!

you learned that because this movie teaches you what your school never taught you, and what your mom never told you, haha.


btw, i havent seen this movie yet. should i? everyone keeps sayin its really good!

Eh, well, you wouldn't be the first to have heard the old myth about pregnancy not being possible until menstruation. The old saying "old enough to bleed is old enough to breed" is the truth so far as it goes, but not the complete truth. A girl's first menstruation is one of the first and most reliable indications that she's ovulating and can therefore get pregnant, but the ovulation comes first, see?

The change of Sam and Maurey's ages from 12 in the book to 14 in the movie does suggest a bit of executive meddling on somebody's part, though I suspect it had more to do with the casting rules than any concern for moral guardians getting up in arms about it: the younger the actors are, the more certain labor laws and restrictions apply. While Hollywood has regularly gotten away with having actors and actresses be much older than the characters they are portraying, somebody may well have thought there was no way they could fool the viewers into thinking these kids were 12. Moreover, back in the 1960s, a lot of children were late bloomers and still hadn't hit puberty by age 14, so this plot point is not altogether unrealistic in context.

Of course, at either age, Sam and Maurey shouldn't even have been considering having sex, "protected" or otherwise. The whole biological point of sex's very existence is reproduction, and trying simultaneously to allow one's natural urges full control of one's behavior and evade all of the natural consequences is pure folly. Pregnancy is all a numbers game, and while various factors can mitigate the odds of getting pregnant, the only wise choice for those who don't want to get pregnant at all is not to play the game.

The way I figure it, the cynic Diogenes had the right idea millennia ago: if you really want to have sex but you don't want all the inevitable social entanglements, try dating your right hand (or your left, as the case may be). Beyond that, if you're looking to satisfy more than just your natural urges, start planning your wedding now, even if you *are* just 12 years old. Once you find your way past all the obstacles our benighted civilization has thrown in your way, you'll be mature enough to be married whatever your age is.