Absent Without Leave

....a young man and a woman cast headlong into the minefield of love and marriage, growing up at a time when there was no time for either, and in a society where the traditional roles of men and women were changing.

– Director John Laing describes what appealed to him about the story, in the Absent Without Leave press kit

To me it was just a simple thing of a young fella and his wife not quite making it on many levels, going up to see my mother, getting my wife somewhere she'd be safe, and demanding my right to a final leave, which I did honestly believe every soldier was entitled to. When I was told there wasn't to be any I thought 'Well, I'm going to have it anyway'.

– James Edwards on the events in his life that inspired the film, The Evening Post, 17 March 1993, page 26

The film depicts a conflict between duty and feeling, between the personal and the public. One cannot help being amazed at the melodramatic passions in the film. The youthful heroes have young souls not yet hardened by cynical attitudes to life.

– Reviewer Marina Murzina, in Russian daily newspaper Izvestiya, July 1993