AustLit

Based on an original idea by director Brian Kavanagh, A City's Child is a moody and somewhat tragic drama about a spinster devoted to providing care in her unloved and unloving mother's final years. After her mother's death, she realises that she has no friends, no acquaintances, and no life of her own. While shopping one day, she buys a doll, and it soon becomes the focus of her life. The woman also begins to fantasise about sleeping with a young man she has seen. Her neighbours become puzzled by the baby clothing that has begun to appear on her clothesline, knowing that she has no child and is in no relationship. The woman does eventually meet and get to know the young man, and even goes to bed with him. When she begins to hear the doll reproach her for the relationship and tell her that the man will leave her because she's too old, she succumbs to further emotional turmoil.