If child gets kicked by a horse, then refuses to ever walk behind a horse again, the child should not be considered smart. I especially would not consider him strong because he survived a hoof in the head. Instead, I respect the child that never gets around the rear of any hoofed, 700-pound mammal.

     The 1973 film A Doll's House, directed by Joseph Losey, based on Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play, and featuring Jane Fonda as Nora, glorifies a woman for moving from behind a jackass after being kicked in the head for years. Nora should not be used as a call for feminism. Nora's walkout scene was powerful, but I do not know many women who would burn their bras over it. She should have left; it was not a heroic event.

     The women depicting Nora in two different 1973 versions of the film, Fonda and Claire Bloom, as directed by Patrick Garland, approach the character differently. Fonda comes across too harsh in the beginning, making the audience wonder why she had not left in the first place. Bloom, on the other hand, plays the 'lark' so well; one would have to wonder what brain just landed in her head to make her want to leave. Neither woman makes sense in the final scene.

     Neither the directing nor the casting is the problem. The entire concept is disturbing. That a woman could marry a man like Torvald (David Warner/Anthony Hopkins), then have such a life-altering turn around that forces her to leave, is at best unrealistic. The reality of the situation is that a man, Henrik Ibsen wrote the book, and it was impossible for him to write a character like Nora believably. There were no hints as to what really made this woman tick, possibly because Ibsen does not know.