The L-Shaped Room

Jane Fosset, a young Frenchwoman, arrives in London and rents a room in a run-down Notting Hill boarding house, a room shaped like the letter L. She is unmarried and pregnant, and she rejects both of the options expected of her — marrying the baby's father or ending the pregnancy. Instead she intends to keep the child. The house is filled with residents who, like her, live at the margins of society, and she gradually forms friendships among them. She also begins an affair with Toby, a struggling writer who lives in the house and who is uneasy about her pregnancy. As single motherhood draws closer, Jane has to work out what she wants for herself and her child, and where Toby fits into that.

Bryan Forbes directed and wrote the screenplay, adapting Lynne Reid Banks's novel; the producer Richard Attenborough was among the film's backers. Leslie Caron leads as Jane, with Tom Bell as Toby and Brock Peters, Bernard Lee, Avis Bunnage and Patricia Phoenix among the twenty-four credited cast. It was the first film Forbes directed, opening a run that continued with King Rat, Deadfall, The Stepford Wives and The Slipper and the Rose.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.3 from around 2,500 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8 from a small number of votes, suggesting a modest but durable reputation rather than a broad modern following.