Lost and Delirious. That pretty much says it all.

alexo-5

Having seen Léa Pool's wonderful 1998 coming-of-age film, "Set Me Free," I was excited to check out this new film of hers. How disappointing to find that the charm, character and sincerity of that film is completely missing here.

The plot: It doesn't take Mary, the mousy new girl at an all girl's school, very long to figure out that her two roommates (Pauline, rebellious and tough, and Victoria, more traditional) are lovers. But when some other girls discover them in bed together, Victoria starts pretending to be straight. This makes the rebellious Pauline go nuts, so she takes up bird training and pretending that she's living in the 14th Century while the mousy girl runs around looking distressed.

When the film begins, the three female leads are ridiculously bouncy and hyper, causing me to wonder if they might be the same actors I saw on "Barney" about six years ago. Then, when the girls turn "serious," they sound like they're reading their lines from a drugstore romance novel: "Have you ever been really thirsty, so you take a big drink of milk right out of the carton - only it's gone sour? That's what's happening to me. Inside. Forever." How can this line be taken seriously?

One of the few things worse than the film's dialogue is the overbearing grab-bag of a soundtrack. The music leaps from "inspirational" Native American Rain Forest Muzak for the bird training scenes to mid-'80s horror film synthesizers for the "dramatic" moments (like the shattering mirror) and then on to the "gut-wrenching" love ballad that plays during a 5-minute close-up of Pauline's twisted face as she writhes in pain from suffering and despair. Good grief.

Jackie Burroughs, the incredible actress who plays the school's elderly headmistress, is more beautiful, sexy, dynamic, exciting, genuine and fascinating than all of the other characters in the film combined. She delivers the film's only genuinely moving scenes, but her outstanding (and brief) performance only makes the rest of the film seem that much more banal.

This film may have been revolutionary had it been made in 1961, but it's set in 2001, so the girls' self-hatred and repression seem outdated and unnecessarily melodramatic. I just wanted to slap them.


If you're interested in cinema that deals intelligently and realistically with the difficulties and confusion - as well as the pleasure and joy - of young women coming to terms with their attraction to each other, I would recommend "The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls In Love" and "Show Me Love."

score 1/10

alexo-5 27 July 2001

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0726838/