Ice Castles

The pirouetting free-skater heroine, blonde nymphette Lexie Winston (Johnson), leaves backwoods Iowa for the rigorous discipline of Olympic coaching. Escaping the claustrophobia of home (where her father sees her as a substitute for her dead mother), she attains a degree of independence comparable to that of her dilettante ice hockey-playing boyfriend Nick (Benson). Aided by worldly people (the coach, a TV sportscaster), she gains success and fame - at a price: the loss of her native innocence (competition is a cutthroat business), the estrangement of Nick, and finally the tragic loss of her eyesight through a fall. What this three-hanky weepie really says is 'Don't get ideas above your station', for Lexie can only come to terms with her handicap by re-accepting the dominance of her father and Nick, and rejecting her ambitions and herself. You'd have to be blind to miss the moral.