Family Life (US: Wednesday's Child)[2] is a 1971 British drama film directed by Ken Loach and starring Sandy Ratcliff, Malcolm Tierney and Grace Cave.

[5] A young woman, Janice, is living with her conservative, working-class parents, who become concerned at her rebellious behaviour, and are shocked when she becomes pregnant.

At a time when pregnancy when unmarried was widely considered shameful, they insist she has an abortion, but this has terrible emotional and mental effects on her.

The production was a success but Garnett said the fate and experience of his family member with the psychiatric profession "kept nagging away at me" so he decided to turn it into a film.

[11][12] Garnett wrote in his memoirs that when he pitched the project to Cohen, the executive summarised the story as "So, a mad girl goes into a mental hospital and goes madder.

[15] During editing, Loach was involved in a car accident that injured him and resulted in the death of his mother in law and five-year-old son.

[17] Garnett said the film "did little business, as Nat had predicted, although long afterwards he had the grace to admit it was released and marketed badly.

[18] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "With its relentless cinéma-vérité style, its lack of conventionally dramatic incident, and its all too recognisable characters, Ken Loach's Family Life is so harrowing in its immediate impact and so transparently inspired by the most passionate humanitarian concern that it seems positively unfeeling to cavil at some of its more specious arguments.

Yet on reflection it becomes clear that, unless the film is to be classified as one of those 'women's weepies' which its techniques appear to be opposing, the tears one copiously sheds at its conclusion must go beyond a cathartic self-indulgence.

"[22] Filmink called it "a masterpiece, a remarkable, emotionally devastating work that’s gutsier than anything Bryan Forbes made at EMI.