an intimate friendship
Written and Directed: Angela Evers Hughey
Static direction, trite acting and almost sickeningly bad writing makes this film one of the worst lesbian releases in recent memory.
It was such a shame because I went into the film really looking forward to it, having enjoyed the preview I saw on the film's website.
You know a film really stinks when a room full of women are laughing hysterically through the whole thing, and there isn't a decent joke told in the entire movie. It was everything bad about lesbian and independent film multiplied by ten.
The story revolves around a young actress/playwright Faygen who finds out that her best friend Danielle is gay and is sleeping with the producer of her new play. She feels something about the development, but isn't sure what, and gets involved with another friend, Jamie, who is the nicest guy but doesn't arouse any feelings of passion inside her. Finally she comes to her senses and realises that Danielle is the love of her life, and she goes about trying to tell her this in disastrous and seriously annoying ways.
A sub-plot involving Danielle and the antagonism between her and her kid sister over the "gay" thing is easily the most interesting part of the film, especially when the little sister enrols in the counselling session for friends and families of gays and lesbians. I think I would have preferred a film about that, rather than the romantic am-I?-aren't-I? angst of the main plot.
I hated Faygen, I thought she was annoying, so I just didn't care what happened to her. About halfway through the film I was counting cliches and rapidly running out of fingers and toes. Note to director - moving people around in a film is a very important thing. These characters were like cardboard cutouts, immobile and two-dimensional.
Unfortunately, as you could hear in the sound problems that plagued the film, sitting people down and making everything static and boring seemed to be the only way they could get the sound right. Sometimes people sounded like they were speaking from two rooms away when they were standing in the same shot. The editor must have been tearing their hair out in frustration, just trying to get usable material.
I found absolutely nothing in this film to recommend. It may just have overtaken Claire of the Moon as my least favourite lesbian film ever. I'm giving it minimal star for effort, but can't in all honesty give it anything more.
