Classic Movie Review: 'Ladybug, Ladybug' is a Chilling Portrait of Nuclear Paranoia

In the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a moment in which many people legitimately believed humanity was going to destroy itself, filmmakers Frank and Eleanor Perry made the bold choice to make a completely anti-nuclear weapon movie using children to discourage the world from being destroyed. Ladybug, Ladybug was that movie. Mostly lost to time today, it’s easy to forget how bracing and bold Ladybug, Ladybug was in the wake of near nuclear annihilation.

Hollywood has blunted the end of the world in the minds of many. Aside from September 11th, we’ve not seen a moment quite like the Cuban Missile Crisis outside of giant, blockbuster action movies which replace the feelings of dread and terror with popcorn thrills that neuter our memories of the actual danger our parents or grandparents felt in the early 1960’s. Imagine at time when the best our government could do to prepare children for nuclear annihilation was recommend that they ‘Duck & Cover.’

Ladybug, Ladybug is an ensemble story about a small, rural school in an unspecified American Midwest. Faces that are familiar today from television populate the cast from before they were well known. Actor William Daniels, best known perhaps for his role on Boy Meets World as the wise teacher Mr Feeney, plays a proto-version of that character in Ladybug, Ladybug, a school principal who makes the difficult decision to send the children of his school home after a nuclear warning alarm inside the school goes off.

No one is certain if the world is about to be annihilated or if it is just some false alarm. Unable to confirm it either way, the principal chooses to send the children home to their parents. Another familiar face, The Sopranos star, Nancy Marchand, plays a deeply shell-shocked teacher who is tasked with walking students home. The school district is so small that there is only one bus and it is used on a rotational basis among half a dozen groups of children who live within a couple mile radius of the school.

While the children are unnerved but unaware of the actual potential danger of the end of the world, Marchand’s teacher struggles to put on a brave face while thinking of her high school aged sons that she may never see again. Her face tells the story that she can’t tell out loud in order to keep the children calm. The students meanwhile, are all very typical kids between the ages of 6 and 12 years old.

Writer Eleanor Perry does a wonderful job of never over-writing the children. There is a natural quality to these young performers that gives Ladybug, Ladybug, an aching authenticity, especially as the end nears and the panic among the children begins to grow. A group of the kids are gathered together in a bomb shelter owned by one of their parents and the bickering, crying and inappropriate humor of these child characters underlines the authenticity of these performances.

The ending of Ladybug, Ladybug is bold and shocking. I’m not going to tell you if the bomb drops or not. There are other tensions at play, on top of potential nuclear annihilation, that give Ladybug, Ladybug momentum toward the end of the movie. A young girl and a young boy, both among the older of the kids, begins a tentative friendship that is reminiscent of the first flirtations of youth and something happens with one of them that is heart-rending and brilliantly, dramatically, harrowing.

The title, Ladybug, Ladybug, comes from an olde English nursery rhyme that takes on a chilling new meaning.

“Ladybug ladybug fly away home,

Your house in on fire and your children are gone”

Ladybug, Ladybug is one of two movies from the husband and wife team of Frank and Eleanor Perry, the other, The Diary of a Mad Housewife, that Kino Lorber is releasing for the first time on Blu-Ray on December, 15th.