CinePhillyist Reviews... The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Playlist Rewind: Shonen Knife at Johnny Brenda's
BalletX Fall Series Begins TONIGHT
Where Have All Our T-Shirts Gone?
Phillyist Playlist: 311 at the Borgata Event Center
Films: Future Screening: None
Every year, when PIGLFF rolls around, I have the best of intentions. Then life gets in the way, and I never see quite as many as I'd like. I've managed to squeeze in a few so far this year, and hey, the weekend's coming.
(Next on my list: tonight's Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band and Polymath, and Sunday's black./womyn). What's on yours?)
Affinity
Sarah Waters is on that list of must-read queer authors. Her books are sudsy fun that straddle the line between potboiler fiction and something slightly more literary.
Adapted for the screen, and a period piece about a prisoner and the conflicted gentlewoman she entangles, Affinity's a dark tale of Sapphic love and angst. Waters' Victorian setting lends itself well to the story, and she's the master of the Hitchockian twist. Shots of gray skies, prison cells, and flickering candles help set the uneasy mood and add to the sense of grim foreboding. And while you might sense the inevitable ending, the twisted, frenzied denouement isn't quite what you'd expect.
It's a fairly faithful translation, but the script doesn't convincingly build the relationship between the two principle characters, a major flaw considering their interaction is the bulk of the movie. But overall, with a side of popcorn, it's not a bad helping of suspenseful fun.
Festival rating: Good
Out Late
Coming out can be a difficult process. Unfortunately, this documentary showcasing six individuals who've chosen to take that route later in life could have been a much more interesting exploration of its subject matter.
The directors profile two men, one woman, one couple, and a man who's transitioned. Told fairly sequentially, with minimal interweaving, the stories leave viewers to find their connections and common themes. The movie's title is also slightly misleading, as some of the subjects have been out to themselves for quite a while, just not publicly, a significant distinction the movie doesn't choose to examine.
The stories follow a familiar format—life before coming out (generally with the attendant marriage and/or children), same-sex exploration, a turning point moment, then the coming out experience. The movie chooses to skim the surface of these issues, rarely providing historical background to contextualize the subjects' life choices. It also avoids offering pointed questions regarding their decisions, choosing instead a linear narrative that feels a little tedious by the end.
The film also remains strangely muted, leaving aside any candid, intimate exploration of older GLBT sexuality, instead only making veiled references to one man's therapeutic hand jobs and primarily playing the oldest woman's forays into dating for laughs.
The piece about a Kansas lesbian couple and their self-declared "best friends", a straight Catholic couple who've known them for years but who speak candidly on camera about their discomfort with the relationship, makes an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the film. The movie baldly shows their decision to vote in favor of a marriage amendment that would deny their friends' legal partnership rights, and captures the uneasy complexity of caring for someone from whom your values differ significantly. The film would have benefited more from taking chances like this one and delving deeper into its subjects' lives, instead of a straightforward (no pun intended) chronicling of their coming out experience.
Festival rating: Fair
Image Credit: Flickr user pedrosimoes7
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