We Should Worry

A kinetic exploration of juvenile agency within the rigid social stratigraphy of early 20th-century cinema, 'We Should Worry' unfolds as a picaresque comedy of manners and machinations. The narrative pivots on the precocious Lee sisters, Jane and Katherine, whose domestic surveillance of their aunt, the luminous and wealthy Miss Ashton, leads to a tactical intervention against the meretricious charms of Percival Gilpatrick. While the children champion the earnest Jack Fenton, Gilpatrick—a surreptitious rogue—attempts to bypass their scrutiny through a series of increasingly desperate stratagems. The conflict escalates into a farcical kidnapping orchestrated by Gilpatrick’s inept confederates, Mike and Bill, who find themselves psychologically besieged by their own captives. This cellar-bound insurgency serves as a microcosm for the film's broader themes of class friction and the subversion of adult authority, ultimately culminating in a high-stakes bank heist where the children's observational prowess facilitates the restoration of romantic and legal order.