THEGAYUK

Tag: Movie Genre Lesbian

  • FILM REVIEW | Cocoon

    FILM REVIEW | Cocoon

    Rating: 4 out of 5.

    Cocoon is a true depiction of the trials and triumphs of female adolescence, a coming-of-age tale that every woman can relate to.

    In the heat of a shimmering Berlin summer, Nora (Lena Urzendowsky) spends her days as a third wheel to her older sister Jule (Lena Klenke) and her best friend Aylin (Elina Vildanova). They think and talk only of boys and how to keep thin, whilst wandering the vibrant city streets taking selfies and juvenile social media videos. Feeling the pressures to fit in, Nora goes along with her sister’s frolics – drinking, smoking and playing ‘smack the finger’ with the boys. But with their alcoholic mother largely absent, it is Jule who bears the brunt of Nora’s supervision. Nora looks up to Jule but still keeps and cares for caterpillars, an activity she and her mother once shared.

    On a gym day at school, Nora gets her period for the first time in front of the class – one embarrassing step too far for Jule. When older student Romy rushes to Nora’s rescue, a friendship blossoms and Nora falls fast in love for the first time. But as the hottest summer on record comes to a close, things will never be the same for Nora – the butterfly has emerged from her cocoon. 

    Now available in cinemas and on VOD.

  • FILM REVIEW | Dating Amber – Growing up gay is not easy

    FILM REVIEW | Dating Amber – Growing up gay is not easy

    Rating: 4 out of 5.

    Fionn O’Shea and Lola Petticrew are just about perfect as a young couple who pretend to fall in love in1995 Ireland in the new film Dating Amber.

    But they are not an actual couple. You see Eddie (O’Shea) is Gay (though he won’t admit it), and Amber (Petticrew) is a Lesbian, and both are on the cusp of finishing their last year of high school. Amber, who lives with her widowed mother in a trailer park, has dreams of moving to London after she graduates. Eddie, meanwhile, plans to go into the military to follow in his father’s footsteps. But to survive their final year at school, and to ward off name-calling and bullying from their fellow students, they decide to pretend to be a couple (this is after a failed attempt on Eddie’s part to woo a blond girl, though he fails to grab her boob during a groping session).

    Eddie and Amber go through their charade and actually make a perfect couple; Eddie is shy, very cute and adorable, while Amber is aggressive, knows what she wants, and has all the best lines. However, after a night out to a gay bar in Dublin where Amber meets someone, and Eddie still not quite ready to accept that he’s gay, the pressure is on for him to take charge of his life, to appease his father (Barry Ward) and very understanding and knowing mother (Sharon Horgan), alongside his know-it-all younger brother (Evan O’Connor). 

    This coming-of-age comedy is a poignant, honest and funny look at the highs and lows of teenage life while growing up in a conservative environment where young people who are different don’t seem to fit in. Both leads are just absolutely perfect, the feel of mid-90s Ireland comes through the screen, and the funny script makes Dating Amber the one of best romantic comedy and growing up films of the year.

    Now available on Demand and Digital

  • FILM REVIEW | The Ground Beneath My Feet – Intense

    FILM REVIEW | The Ground Beneath My Feet – Intense

    Rating: 4 out of 5.

    Very intense and dramatic, The Ground Beneath My Feet is a pure psychological thriller that will mess with your head.

    German with English subtitles, and released in Germany last year, the film follows Lola (Valerie Pachner), a very competitive business consultant. She tries to constantly outdo her co-workers, working very hard on a case that might take her to associate principal level. Lola, who gets by on 6 hours sleep, sleeps more in hotel beds than in her own bed and hits the exercise room at the crack of dawn for an intense workout. She’s having an affair with her boss Elise (Mavie Hörbiger), and she has a sister with mental and emotional problems and who is in a mental institution.

    So to add to the pressure of her job and the illicitness of her relationship, Lola works like crazy to get a deal through the finish line, but she’s also struggling to visit her sister Connie (Pia Hierzegger) and needs to make decisions that impact her life, especially more so when Connie is released. It’s a lot to juggle, and Lola is constantly on the go go go, and even her co-workers worry about her lack of rest. But strange phone calls from a stranger who claims to be her sister, and strategic games that her co-workers play against her shows that Lola’s world is not as perfect and calm as she would like to believe it is.

    Released to great reviews, and competed for the Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, Director Marie Kreutzer brings us a taut, nail-biting psychological thriller where Pachner is at the heart of it all and brilliantly takes her character through an emotional rollercoaster.

    The Ground Beneath My Feet is available to stream or download from all major UK digital platforms – including Sky Store, Virgin Media, Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and the BFI Player.

  • FILM REVIEW | Can You Ever Forgive Me?

    FILM REVIEW | Can You Ever Forgive Me?

    ★★★★ | Can You Ever Forgive Me?

    Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant both play gay characters in the fantastic Can You Ever Forgive Me?

    Based on the life of book author, and Lesbian, Lee Israel, and fluidly directed by Marielle Heller, Can You Ever Forgive Me? based on the late Israel’s memoir, tells about the misadventures of Israel’s life. She was a Manhattanite who didn’t have much money to rub together, so she starts forging signatures of famous people and then sells them to collectors, raking in big money.

    Questions start arising about her charade, and soon enough she has to pull back, and then enlists her gay best friend Jack (Richard E. Grant – in his best performance ever) to take over her sales duties to pawn more fakes to the collectors. It’s early 1990’s New York City, and one gets the feeling that anything can happen then (‘if you can make it there you can make it anywhere’), and that Israel will rise above it all, but in the end, we know what is coming. But before, director Heller (working from a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty) perfectly sets the mood and vibe of New York, with bookshops almost at every corner (long gone now no thanks to the internet) and quite a few of the scenes in the film were shot in the West Village’s classic gay bar Julius.

    Can We Ever Forgive Israel? Yes, we can definitely forgive Israel for what she’s done because it has brought us this fine movie. McCarthy and Grant have been nominated for Oscars, let’s hope that if anyone of them wins, it will be Grant. He is just superb in his role, debonair, chilled, and like a fine wine, getting better with age.

    Order Can You Ever Forgive Me on DVD

  • FILM REVIEW: Carol

    In the new film ‘Carol’, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett play two women who fall in love at a time when it was not accepted and actually frowned upon.

    Director Todd Haynes, in his first film since 2007’s I’m Not There, has crafted this movie in a style and theme that he’s used before. In ‘Far From Heaven‘ Julianne Moore’s housewife faces a marital crisis – her husband is caught kissing another man so she takes comfort in the arms of a black man. Whereas in Carol Cate Blanchett‘s unhappy housewife falls into the arms of another woman. Both of these films take place in the 1950’s where it’s all dewy and lush and beautiful. And the attention to detail in both films is amazing, capturing the fashion and essence that was the norm of it’s time, where everyone made an effort to dress up, especially the women, even just to go shopping.

    Blanchett’s character, Carol Aird, is in a loveless marriage but it’s not because her husband is cheating on her with another man, it’s because Carol is cheating on her husband with another woman. It’s not a mid-life crisis that Carol is going through, she’s been linked to Abby Gerhard (Sarah Paulson) in the past, and Abby has always been in the shadows throughout Carol’s marriage to Harge (Kyle Chandler). Harge still loves Carol, he wants to stay married, but Carol insists that the divorce still goes ahead, which is very difficult for the both of them because of their young daughter. But one day Carol goes into a department store and is eyed by employee Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), who suggests to Carol to buy a train set for her daughter. Carol and Therese have chemistry, and the next day Carol invites Therese out for lunch to thank her for helping her out with her purchase. Eventually, they start seeing each other more and more, and they fall headstrong into a relationship. Carol, who has the perfect husband and the perfect house, pursues a relationship with Therese, at the risk of losing custody of her daughter. Harge, in utter frustration over Carol’s new found relationship, seeks full custody of their daughter using a morality clause as the reason. And Therese risks her impending marriage to her boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy) to be with Carol, and she and Carol embark on several trips together. It’s not until New Year’s Eve where they consummate their relationship in a full on one-minute lip lock, which leads to a sexual act, again full on, there’s almost nothing left to the imagination. But will Carol’s impending divorce and the threat of losing her daughter and Therese’s burgeoning career as a photographer get in the way of their relationship?

    Blanchett is magnificent as Carol, who risks losing her daughter yet has strong feelings for a much younger woman. Mara is even more superb as Therese, her innocence and naivete in full display. Both actresses are excellent, yet it’s Mara who ups Blanchette in the acting arena. The movie basically revolves around Therese and her coming of age not just with her career but with her sexuality as well. It would be a shame if Mara is reduced to supporting actress level as Blanchett does get top billing, they both deserve Best Actress Academy Award nominations but it’s Mara who should be on the podium. Chandler is also excellent as Carols’ husband – he’s got an ideal 1950’s look about him. ‘Carol,’ Based on the novel ‘The Price of Salt’ by Patricia Highsmith, was written at a time when it’s subject was considered scandalous, which Haynes truly captures.

    Carol was filmed with Super 16mm to produce the muted hues of glamour magazines of the era, it’s romantic and dramatic and lovely to watch.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Broken Gardenias

    ★ | Broken Gardenias

    Jenni is a misfit and a nerd. She is so clumsy that she breaks most of the plant pots at the nursery where she works and that really annoys her boss.

    Her self-absorbed roommates all but one ignore her, and she is totally friendless. It gets even worse after she is hospitalised and loses both her job and her home. Clutching one cardboard box of her worldly possessions she makes tracks to the nearest park and sets about hanging herself from a tree.

    Even this does not go to plan as she is cut down and rescued by Sam (short for Samantha) a feisty lesbian with a buzz cut and ripped jeans and a great big grin. ‘This’ she tells a downcast Jenni ‘is the face of a nice person’. Something she feels the need to point out after listening to the miserable girl pour out her tale of woe as it seems likely that she has never encountered a nice person ever before in her life.

    Part of the story is Jenni’s father who she hasn’t seen since she was brought to the city and dumped there when she was very little. He is still in Los Angeles. Maybe. Jenni is very sketchy about details, but that doesn’t deter Sam who declares that they will set off for LA in search of him immediately. Even the fact they do not have a car, or even the faintest idea where in the vast city he will be is considered irrelevant by the overly optimistic Sam.

    Their road trip is littered with characters that Sam just shrugs off, but which wind up Jenni even more. When they arrive in the city and the search for the father starts, Sam has a detour when she runs into an old fling who invites her… and Jenni… to a wild party. Whilst Sam goes off to make out with her ex, wide-eyed Jenni ends up tripping on a psychedelic cupcake and getting into some bedroom action that she didn’t didn’t count on. She freaks out and then as she has angered the owner of the house as well, runs off into the city and is really on her own now. The question is will she survive, and will she find her father? Even more important will we have lost interest just like Sam does?

    Broken Gardenias is billed as a dark comedy and is the work of first-time director Kai Alexander whose bio states that he spent his childhood with his parents who were part of a travelling circus which may account for the bizarre roster of characters the two women encounter. The script is by newbie writer Alma S. Grey who also plays Jenni.

    The sole bright spot of this film is the performance of Ashley Morocco as the bubbly Sam as asides from this the movie just simply fails to really engage, and for a comedy, it is painfully unfunny.

  • FILM REVIEW | Appropriate Behaviour

    ★★★ | Appropriate Behaviour

    For Shirin, a twentysomethingyear old angst ridden fashionable Brooklynite, life is mess.

    We don’t need to feel sorry for her, as she does that so well herself. She is reluctantly breaking up with Maxine her girlfriend and leaving the home they shared with little more than a strap on dildo. She is moving into a shabby squalid apartment with a pair of pretentious ‘artists’. Her nice middle class Iranian parents, who have no idea about her sexual identity, would like her to marry a nice traditional Persian boy. Her over-achieving brother is a doctor, whilst Shirin wastes her journalism degree and just flits from one menial job to another. And if that is not enough, she is broke too.

    The trouble is Shirin doesn’t know what she wants. She starts dating men again, whilst at the same time tries all she can do to woo a reluctant Maxine back. Her attempts at ‘finding herself’ make for some of the funnier moments in this comic story that is based loosely on the life of Desiree Akhavan who not only directed and wrote it, but is playing Shirin herself too. It’s her performance that makes this piece come alive even with its gaping holes. When Shirin attempts a three-way with a neurotic couple, or has a hook-up from a website, or makes a disruptive visit to a gay rights discussion group it is outrageously funny.

    Ms. Akhavan has written herself some delicious one-liners.

    Her scenes with her parents are less successful as it’s hard to believe that such worldly educated people would never have a single inkling as to what their free-spirit bisexual daughter is all about.

    The story peters out with little conclusion other than the fact that Ms Akhavan is an immensely talented performer and is a powerful presence on the screen. I am sure that we will see a great deal more of this future star.

  • FILM REVIEW | Who’s Afraid Of Vagina Wolf?

    ★★ | Who’s Afraid Of Vagina Wolf?

    Anna has just turned 40. She’s a chubby Cuban/American lesbian filmmaker, lonely, depressed and with more than a generous helping of self-pity that she loves to wallow in. At her birthday party to mark her entry into middle-age she wears a giant vagina costume which may get her the odd performing gig at a trendy museum but it isn’t going to get her laid tonight. Undaunted and back in her friend’s L.A. garage next morning where she has been living for some months now, she maps out her annual birthday goals. They are the exact same ones she has had for several years and never even gets close to achieving. She wants to a) make a movie, b) lose 20lbs and c) find a girlfriend.

    She thinks she may start on the third one just a few nights later at a screening of one of her Short Movies which seems to delight a very attractive girl in the audience. Katya is stunningly beautiful but she is also a bit of cold fish and a pretentious cultural snob. Nevertheless in conversation with her later Anna is so mesmerised by the fact that Katya is even spending time with her, she listens to the younger girl egg her on to make a new movie. Anna only agrees as she thinks this may be a way to get into the girl’s panties.

    To impress her potential girlfriend Anna decides to make an all-lesbian version of Edward Albee’s classic ‘Who’s Afraid or Virginia Woolf’ and encouraged by Katya describes the project as ‘a post examination of lesbo-phobia’. I’m not sure about that, but what I do know when this film about making a film gets to this part, it’s all downhill from now on. There was the possibility that this remake of one of Elizabeth Taylor’s Oscar-winning roles would be good as Guinevere Turner (The L Word) would be playing Martha, but as Katya persuades the love-smitten Anna to tone down all the famous histrionics, then that lost all of its steam too.

    This movie is based on the real life of its writer/director/star Anna Margarita Albelo who bears a passing resemblance to Lena Dunham (‘Tiny Furniture’ ‘Girls’) whom I am guessing she may aspire to be.

    However, unlike Ms Dunham who is a Golden Globe/Emmy-winning all-rounder gifted powerhouse, the very inexperienced Ms Albelo lacks her fine sense of humour and her talent to act. In this piece, she is sadly her own worst enemy as her stilted writing may have fared slightly better if her role had been played by a real actress.

    Full of good intentions this micro-budget movie had some potential especially when the cast also included Carrie Preston (‘The Good Wife’) and also young Agnès Olech who did a fine turn as Julia the girl who really fancied Anna, But for a comedy it took itself way too seriously which really dampened the humour. There is one moment that is funny for the wrong reason when Katya is trying to be deep and profound with Anna and says ‘Remember what Jean-Luc Goddard said and shit on your audience as much as possible!’. For the record, M. Goddard did not say that, but I must admit that occasionally it felt that Anna had believed he did.

    For the record, by the end of the year, Anna achieved two of her goals. I’ll leave it to you to find out which two.

  • FILM REVIEW | Bumblef**k USA

    ★★★★ | Bumblef**k USA

    Newbie filmmaker Aaron Douglas Johnson’s debut feature is an unsettling docu-drama hybrid that arose from a very personal tragedy in his life.

    Johnson was born in a small town in Iowa and as an only child he grew up very close to his cousin Matt. By all accounts, Matthew, a devout Catholic and a passionate Republican, was a very popular member of his high school soccer team. Matthew was also gay, and at the age of 24 committed suicide after coming out of the closet in his hometown. This film, however, is not a biopic but Johnson’s attempt to try and get a better understanding of what it must have been like for Matthew to struggle with his sexuality in this small town in Middle America.

    The film successfully mixes a fictional story about Alexa a young blond Dutch woman who had befriended Matt on a Course somewhere and she has flown to Iowa from Amsterdam to make a documentary about her friends passing. Amongst all the interviews she films (unscripted and with very actual local lesbians and gays) she goes on somewhat of her own roller-coaster ride as she also starts to discover her own true identity as well.

    Settling into a house where she has rented a room for the summer, Alexa is so caught up in her own world that she is unaware that Lukas her landlord, a lonely man in his 40s, is immediately attracted to her. In fact, we soon discover that she has an unfortunate manner taking all kindnesses for granted and happily using and promptly discarding everybody who takes any interest in her.

    After her first night in Iowa, this somewhat confused girl wakes up in a strange bed without much recollection on how she ended up there. Her bed partner is Jennifer a local bartender/artist and the two women could not be more opposite. Not just because this is Alexa’s first time with a woman, but the fact out and proud lesbian Jennifer is an edgy positive woman who knows exactly what she wants out of life. And that doesn’t include sleeping with ‘straight’ women who end up running back to their boyfriends, as she has done that already.

    Alexa’s voyage of discovery will start at that moment when she cannot wait to get dressed and get out of Jennifer’s apartment. She’ll be back on and off, but not before she has a romp in a cemetery (well with a male grave digger) who, when he has finished making out with her in her room, is then unceremoniously kicked out by the Landlord at her request. Lukas will eventually try his luck after he has seen Alex dispensing sexual favours liberally with others, and when she resists, he rapes her.

    Johnson’s intriguing and thought-provoking film is somewhat disturbing. Not simply as the talking heads so poignantly articulate their own strife dealing, and overcoming, with some of the negative consequences after acknowledging the truth about their sexuality, but using a thoughtless and self-absorbed protagonist in the fictional story made it nigh on impossible to sympathise with her at times. It was, however, a very clever and unusual formula for reinforcing his key message i.e. it’s still tough being out and gay in so many places even today.

    Johnson should be applauded for honouring his cousin’s memory in this manner, and if this movie succeeds in just saving one more life, then it was all definitely worthwhile.

  • FILM REVIEW | Finding Vivian Maier

    ★★★★★ | Finding Vivian Maier

    A young graduate working on a history project bought a suitcase full of photographic negatives in a Chicago auction hoping that one or two them maybe useful in his research. However what John Maloof discovered that day in 2007 was a treasure trove of what is undoubtedly one on the finest collection of street photography ever made. They all turned out to be the work of one person a Vivian Maier, someone so totally unknown there wasn’t a single mention of her on Google or any other Internet search engine.

    A curious Maloof turned detective and his painstaking research helped him very gradually put together a picture of this mystery genius and at the same time discover and purchase even more of her work. Vivian Maier had been born in New York in 1929 and had then spent much of her childhood in France before returning to Chicago where she worked for almost 40 years as a Nanny. Every new discovery Maloof made about the unknown Maier was a shocking revelation as very few of the people she had worked for had any sense that this extremely odd woman they had hired to look after their offspring was a prolific obsessed photographer with such a remarkable eye. It seems most of her young charges knew as Nanny Maier dragged them through the seamier rough spots of the city clutching her camera looking for subjects as part of their daily constitutional.

    As Maloof pieced together Maier’s story like a jigsaw what emerged was a picture of a very eccentric loner and a compulsive hoarder who was an immensely private person. It’s only when he traces her steps in France does he discover that Maier knew that she was talented but apart from a brief correspondence with one printer did she ever talk about letting people see her work. The fact that news of the discovery of the 100000 plus negatives and the 700 plus undeveloped rolls of film had gone viral, there were still doubters from the people who knew Maier that she would have ever wanted this worldwide fame and recognition.

    This new documentary that Maloof wrote and directed, along with writer/producer Charlie Siskel, is exceptional for two distinct reasons. Firstly the very human story about this rather bizarre woman who was described as being ‘so awesomely unique’ and ‘a very closed cold person’ and who ended up losing one job with the mother explaining to her child ‘Vivian has got a little too crazy even for us’. The reminisces of the people who knew her are riveting and poignant. And then there is this whole superb body of work which is so exceptionally wonderful it stuns you into silence at times. Howard Greenberg a leading NY Gallerist who holds exhibitions of her work claims that no other photographer’s work has ever generated this much interest in his time.

    Credit to Maloof on several counts. Not only for recognising the significance of his find, and for his sheer doggedness and determination to ‘finding’ Vivian Maier, but also for the impressive way he put this all together in this, his first ever movie.

    There are so many components of this story that will keep you wondering and wanting to know more. Like why would this aggressively shy person produce so many ingenious portraits of herself that she could have been credited as being the creator of the ubiquitous selfie?

    Unmissable: and you will want to see it at least twice.

  • FILM REVIEW | Tru Love

    ★★★★ | Tru Love

    When 60-year-old Alice comes to Toronto six months after becoming a widow, her daughter Suzanne a lawyer is too busy at work to be home to greet her mother.

    She asks her unemployed friend Tru to step in at the last minute to look after Alice but then is shocked when she later arrives home and find that the two women have very quickly bonded. When Suzanne goes back to the office again that night, Alice takes Tru out to dinner to thank her, and the conversation soon takes a very personal turn.

    Alice is fascinated to learn about 30-something-year-old Tru’s life as a commitment-phobic serial-bed-hopping lesbian’s seemingly carefree life. She admits to having similar feelings when she was young but confessed that back in those days one had either to get married or join a nunnery. This provokes Tru into joking that the latter would have been the same as being a lesbian. There is obviously an attraction between the two women, but both are afraid to act upon it.

    The relationship between Alice and Suzanne is, however, is tenuous, to say the least as if neither can deal with the other’s grief for the departed husband/father. When it is clear that Alice’s spirits are so lifted by just spending time with Tru, Suzanne steps in and meddles to try and ensure that she puts a stop to their budding relationship. It appears at first she is in denial that Alice could possibly be a lesbian, but it soon turns out that this lonely partnerless woman has another reason to resent Tru making her mother so happy.

    Tru on the other hand slowly realises that with this welcoming older woman she is capable of loving someone after all. Alice never doubts her feelings but in some wonderful scenes talking to her late husband (seen on screen) she does question if this invalidates her life to date as she has not been true to her own feelings.

    This very touching story is very much about the two women’s quite chaste love but also equally about Alice’s relationship with her own daughter which seems to have reached a very low point. It’s unexpected and sudden ending was not the best way to finish the story as it didn’t really seem to give closure to all of them, well, at least to the two younger women.

    It’s an entertaining spirited movie about a delightful May/December relationship. Shauna MacDonald who co-wrote and co-directed as well as playing Tru gave herself a part that could/should have done more, but she did at least enable Kate Trotter who superbly played Alice and was a sheer joy as so convincingly conveyed the spirit of a woman finally discovering herself.