Stanley Kauffmann

“….Obviously I'm saving the best for last. The girl is played by Amy Madigan, who is making her screen debut (after some TV movies). Eighteen at the start, left on her own by family circumstances, this girl gets quite accidentally involved in an attempt at armed robbery. She is easily caught; and she pleads guilty on advice of counsel. The fact that she had no slightest criminal intent, the additional fact that she is given a stunningly heavy sentence, produce bitterness and a bitter fight to preserve self. Madigan, freckled, plain but winning, is simultaneously proud and pathetic, intense and vulnerable. A familiar phrase in the literature about acting is the Illusion of the First Time. It's usually applied to dialogue that has been memorized and rehearsed; in Madigan's case, it can be applied to her entire, fundamentally familiar role. She brings us news, human news.”

--Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic, December 30, 1982?