Directed By Women: Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

By Andrea Thompson

I do love a good change of pace, and after the sweetness of the platonic girl bonds of my prior column, “Love Lies Bleeding” is most definitely that.

A thrillingly twisted, subversive crime tale of blood, love, and murder that embraces the beautifully surrealist absurdity of letting your freak flags fly with a lover who sees the beauty in your darkest darkness, it’s one of the best A24 thrillers I’ve seen, and will likely have a place on my best films of 2024.

Directed and co-written by Rose Glass, who made a splash with her 2019 horror movie “Saint Maud,” it isn’t content to merely delve into the ugliness of each and every character on-screen, it reminds us how such monstrosities are made. The 80’s setting certainly doesn’t hurt in this respect, and “Love Lies Bleeding” takes such care to hammer home who runs this rot-infested vision of America that a kid shows up in a Reagan mask pretty promptly.

Overwrought metaphors aside, I do love a movie that allows its female characters to be truly fucked up. Yes, women love stories which revolve around those of us who triumph over their circumstances and improve themselves by doing the right thing against all odds, or acting as an avatar of hope when things are at their lowest. But we also love throwing likability out the window and letting women get messy, brutal and complicated.

In other words? We can cheer for Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn; it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Likewise, depictions of lesbian relationships don’t always have to veer into utopian territory. There are indicators that Lou (Kristen Stewart) is trying to shed the toxicity in her life before she ever encounters homeless aspiring bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O'Brian), what with her listening to audio pronouncements on the dangers of smoking as she lights up a cig, and when she first appears she’s literally up in shit at the gym she works at, a clear indicator that things are about to go down.

Denial runs deep though, since shortly after Lou meets Jackie, she not only introduces her to steroids, but teaches her how to put them to use. It’s taken for granted in the relationship they quickly start, with Jackie moving in shortly after and their whirlwind romance spiraling into a tornado by the end. At least it’s a sparkling thing of beauty. 

Lou is also the one who unwittingly gets Jackie involved in her complicated family life. We all bring our baggage to relationships, but when your father (Ed Harris being convincingly scary) is a vicious local crime lord with a high body count, there’s a damn good chance things will get messy fairly quickly.  

And does it ever. Don’t take steroids kids, because you might take it a bit too seriously. When Lou says she wishes her sister Beth’s (Jena Malone) abusive husband JJ (a nearly unrecognizable hicked up Dave Franco) would die, Jackie takes matters into her own hands, literally, and beats the guy to death with them. Whoa.

Even if you also have the most supportive girlfriend ever, the kind who has a working knowledge of how to dispose of a body that points the finger at someone else, it tends to leave some kind of mark. And shockingly, Jackie’s steroid use spirals to the point where even Lou becomes somewhat afraid of her, even becoming the victim of some domestic violence herself as Jackie begins to come apart.

A24

Much like any story of organized crime worth its salt, everyone in its orbit is enabling a monster in some way, and getting whacked is a big possibility. It’s the feminine duality of Meadow versus Adriana in “The Sopranos”: you either enable and victimize, or you become the victim. In “Love Lies Bleeding,” Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone) is the avatar for this particular truth, with her refusal to leave her abusive husband even after he beats her to a bloody pulp and standing firmly with her father when things go awry.

What makes Lou and Jackie worth rooting for isn’t merely their status as main characters who become anti-heroines, but the fact that they are rooted in their love and acceptance of each other. Jackie might even say near the end she wishes she never met Lou, but the two are twisted soul mates by then, and even the death and disposal of a mostly innocent bystander won’t change that. 

Who knows? With the slate mostly scrubbed clean of any and all enemies, they are the ones who may even become something healthy…ish. And when your girlfriend’s rage literally transforms her into a powerful giant, that’s the kind of muscle that may stand a chance against the patriarchy.

Directed By Women: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995)

Screenshot

By Andrea Thompson

We all love to glorify young love. How can we be blamed? Is there a feeling that compares to that first dizzying fall, which generally coincides with a time in our lives where adulthood encroaches but hasn’t quite taken hold in the form of rent, bills, and dependents? 

Much as we idolize youth, we often fail to take into account the complete and utter unpredictability of it, especially when that first relationship takes hold. Maria Maggenti knows though, and her 1995 film “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” is a tender form of exorcism, a way to transform the whirlwind of emotions which accompanied her own first love into something she could finally process.

It’s a kind of artistic alchemy most are familiar with, even if only from the outside. As for Maggenti, she waits until the final ambiguous frame of high school seniors Randy Dean (Laurel Holloman) and Evie Roy (Nicole Ari Parker) for the dedication: “For my first girlfriend. May our relationship finally rest in peace.” 

By the time Maggenti has let out her cinematic sigh of relief, it’s hard to think of anyone that Randy and Evie aren’t at odds with. Friends and family alike have gotten pulled into the drama that can often result from two girls finding each other in a fairly hostile environment. 

Both of them have support systems in place that are also indicators of their respective, opposite places in life - Evie from her relatively privileged world and loving mother, and Randy with her lesbian aunt Rebecca (Kate Stafford) her aunt’s girlfriend Vicky (Sabrina Artel), along with her sole friend at school, the relatively out Frank (Nelson Edwin Rodríguez).

It’s much needed in a town so small that when Evie asks Randy where she is shortly after her arrival, Randy replies in typical teenage snark with “the middle of nowhere.” Queerness still abounds however, with Randy meeting clandestinely with Wendy (Maggie Moore) a 27-year-old married woman, along with cameos with others who are on the down low, with two women of a certain age in a hotel who ask inquiring parents if they were sent by their husbands.

Evie and Randy’s growing connection has the added baggage of young queer lovers who are finding each other in a pre-Internet rural area. It’s enough that Randy’s aunt Rebecca and Vicky end each day with a secular note of gratitude that they made it through another one, and as Evie and Randy share stories, secrets, and Walt Whitman’s “Blades of Grass,” the fact that they’ve connected with another artistic soul is enough to send them into a swoon, making everything and everyone else pale into insignificance. 

The mutual longing in a time of landlines no doubt aids in the pining as well. It’s highly doubtful that nostalgia is what Maggenti had in mind, what with the open hostility from their community, with nearly everyone feeling free to comment on Randy’s masculine appearance, and the often vicious slurs and harassment thrown her way. But the 90’s pining can hardly be avoided when characters drop period references and even confidently state that there’s no KGB anymore.

Screenshot

So when Evie and Randy’s relationship is discovered in the worst way possible, along with another academically related development Randy has been hiding, things spiral in a chaotically funny climax that brings everyone the two have relegated to side status together. By the film’s final frame, which sees them united yet ambivalently teetering on the cusp of adulthood and its complications, it’s bittersweet in its beauty.

Clearly, the two have and will leave their mark on each other. But little else is clear by the end of “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love,” other than that the process of growing up will impose other, more stifling limitations. Yet what else is first love but sweet sorrow?

Directed By Women: Kokomo City (2023)

By Andrea Thompson

Holiday breaks are wonderful for many reasons, but as I return for a new year after a self-imposed hiatus, one of the benefits I reaped is getting to view D. Smith’s remarkable documentary “Kokomo City” multiple times. In the constant hustle that is the life of a freelance writer, getting to really soak in and absorb a film has become something of a luxury in the age of content, AI, and ever present deadlines.

And there is so much to appreciate in “Kokomo City,” which follows the lives of four Black trans women, all of whom are or were engaged in sex work. Want to think, consider, and laugh out loud within the first five minutes? Then give this one a watch, because there’s a whole lot of ground to cover during the 73 minutes we spend getting to know these women.

This is the part where I tend to marvel at the fact that this is a filmmaker’s feature debut, but D. Smith had been working in the music world as a producer for years before she discovered a passion for filmmaking, an endeavor which was partly born out of necessity. Although she worked with household names in the early 2000s that included Lil Wayne and Ciara, among others, even winning a Grammy in 2009, she was “forced out of the music industry” (as Smith herself put it) once she came out as trans.

Finding herself broke, homeless, and somewhat adrift, “Kokomo City” isn’t just representative of a promising new direction, it’s something of a comeback, and the accolades have been pouring in. They damn well should be, since Smith makes good use of the access she was granted to each of these women’s lives, the kind it’s difficult to picture another filmmaker getting.

If Smith weren’t also Black and trans, would we have been privy to Smith’s own very individualistic take on the contemplative route, with the kind of intimate dialogue that includes everything from hair removal tips to discussion of class, race, and how such forces affect their ability to pay those bills while they’re lounging in bed or the bathtub?

Unlikely, since “Kokomo City” has, in many ways, an insider’s unblinking gaze of the world and topics it’s delving into. And although her previous career came to a painful end (for now at least), it seems to have been time well spent, with the doc’s gorgeous black and white aesthetic and stylistic flourishes giving it an edgy music video feel - the click of a gun, the sound of a roar as sexuality is discussed, and the killer use of music in general.

Those discussions about sexuality, complete with light reenactments and nudity, also come off as both naturalistic and raw, to use the most convenient cliche. But that rawness applies to other less flashy, but still arresting topics, namely the way all four women discuss their lives and how their identities affect not only their daily circumstances but those of their clients. These women are older - to use the more gentle euphemism about anything having to do with women in pop culture who’ve left their 20s behind - having successfully entered various phases of their 30s, and are thus savvy survivors; not only more aware of the bullshit but less likely to take it.

That bullshit manifests in film’s most constant thread: the vicious hypocrisy of the many ways men take advantage of and sometimes actively harm them, and how cis women are typically all too willing to let it happen, but are likewise unable to imagine their partners even being attracted to them. And all four of the film’s subjects, as well as the men who are willing to speak of that attraction, are willing to make some truly jaw-dropping statements about it.

Daniella Carter in KOKOMO CITY, courtesy ofMagnolia Pictures

As one member of the film’s central foursome Daniella Carter sums it up: “The only thing he there for is escaping his own goddamn reality. And you know what that reality is? Ten times better than the one he’s giving you.” With such statements - and plenty more where that came from - it would be easy to think that “Kokomo City” revels in self-seriousness, but like many a pop culture offering from those who are traditionally marginalized, humor and joy are the primary defense mechanisms when you generally don’t have access to more official protection.

What’s left unsaid may be even more telling. How did the men who are willing to talk about homophobia in the Black community and their own attraction and encounters with trans women come to meet Smith and the other women on-screen? As the women themselves speak of how often their typical customers conform to the stereotypical tough guy image, it’s indicative of a long history of gender and sexual fluidity in hip hop, a community that has only recently begun to grapple with its history of vicious homophobia.

It doesn’t prevent “Kokomo City” from earning every bit of the oft-used descriptor unflinching, and sadly that includes a frustratingly common ending for one of the most jaded of the women the documentary follows: Koko Da Doll, who was shot and killed in Atlanta, and to whom the film is dedicated. If another piece of art must end up being a tribute to a vibrant, resilient person whose life still ended far too soon, this one at least is also a beautiful, powerful testament to a community which finds itself under siege yet nevertheless refuses to define itself by its oppressors.

Directed By Women: Blue Jean (2022)

Magnolia Pictures

By Andrea Thompson

In the simplest of terms, as defined by Britannica, color is the aspect of any object that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation. But how do we define how it defines us? How do we describe a phenomenon which so casually evokes a range of reactions and emotions to those who, for whatever reason, have never encountered it? How do we define what defines us, especially when it’s so intertwined in our lives we practically forget it exists?

Apropos for a film that takes such a concept into its very title, “Blue Jean” is above all evocative - of feeling most of all. The Jean of the title (played with tenderly compassionate vulnerability by Rosy McEwen) is a woman who is living what can be simply defined as a closeted life. It’s a phrase tossed off so casually, often even humorously, that we can forget what it really encompasses to have to hide the most loving, and thus often best part of yourself, from others, sometimes in plain sight.

Blue isn’t merely the film’s aesthetic of choice which winds its way through Jean’s life as she attempts to reconcile her precarious balancing act, at times it literally cradles her in her arms. Her bathroom is wrapped in blue, and of course, much of her wardrobe is various shades of it, the various settings gorgeously rendered by cinematographer Victor Seguin incorporate it, and the student uniforms during gym at the secondary school where Jean teaches are also sky hued.

It’s easy to see how another film could take a lesbian gym teacher and embrace what has long become a kind of running joke. But Jean is working and living in Newcastle in 1988. It’s relatively small, conservative, and a world away (on the other side of the country really) from the more metropolitan London, when Margaret Thatcher’s government is about to pass a law criminalizing homesexuality. Nothing funny about it.

It is, in essence, easy to get the blues, living as Jean does in a time when her very existence is seen as an offense. No wonder her more out and proud girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes) uses the phrase deer in the headlights to describe Jean at one point. So what then, can a life look like?

For Jean, it can actually look pretty good, as long as nothing changes. She is mostly uninterested in joining her coworkers for a pint with their talk of pairing her up with a guy, SlimFast diets, and their general agreement with the reports that extol thinking of the children whenever anyone rebels against the concept of gay people as a threat to society. She’d rather head out to the warm vibes of the lesbian bar she frequents, where she’s earned the nickname Baby Jean, and enjoy some good sex with Viv,  who is quick to push back against her girlfriend’s own internalized homophobia.

But no cerulean shield will be enough when Lois (Lucy Halliday), one of Jean’s students, becomes a frequent attendee at the local lesbian bar and of course, recognizes her teacher. Suddenly, the microaggressions become harder to take, from her supposedly supportive sister who still keeps Jean’s wedding picture on her mantle and all but clutches her pearls at the thought of her five-year-old son being introduced to Viv as Jean’s girlfriend, the neighbor across the way whose coldly hateful gaze has all the wrath of an auto-da-fé, to the dating shows where women are asked to be appropriately feminine enough for whatever random man is chosen as the catch of the night.

As Drew Burnett Gregory wrote in her Autostraddle review of the film, “‘Save the children’ is just about the easiest manipulation tactic those who want us dead can use.” It’s an apt summary of how concern is so often weaponized to the detriment of all, including nearly every life writer-director Georgia Oakley chronicles, however briefly, in “Blue Jean.” A queer woman herself who was born in 1988, Oakley so compassionately depicts her subject and the way she at times fails the very people who need her most it’s occasionally difficult to believe she didn’t live out the period and the havoc it left in its wake, which is threatening to repeat itself, and in some cases already is.  

The thing about the color Oakley chooses for her metaphor though? It tends to always be there, waiting for those to acknowledge its presence. It’s the color of the sea and sky, some of our most common trouser choices, and it can also be indicative of how warm it can be when we find a communal safe space that lends it support.

Directed By Women: The People's Joker (2022)

By Andrea Thompson

Ah, autumn. For others, it means leaves changing, pumpkin spice lattes, spooky fun, and sweaters. For film critics, it means a whole lot of film festivals that we insist on running ourselves ragged for. Why should that change? For those afflicted with cinephilia, it’s a fantastic way to experience films that wouldn’t otherwise be discoverable, even in our supposedly stuffed-with-options streaming content era. 

Personally, I have immersed myself in the Chicago Underground Film Festival, the Reeling International Film Festival, and am now turning my attention to the Chicago International Film Festival, which features an absolute beauty of a lineup this year. And one particular offering seemed to almost beg for a place in this recently revamped Directed By Women column: “The People’s Joker”. 

Like last week’s focus, “T Blockers,” “The People’s Joker” is a trans film, and there’s a whole lot of horror contained in it without its characters being reduced to their oppression. But where “T Blockers” is a Gen Z anthem of defiance made by a budding artist just on the cusp of what will hopefully be a long and promising career, Vera Drew’s “The People’s Joker” is a millennial tale full of hard-lived wisdom and steeped in meta.

It’s also an incredibly low budget movie that’s equal parts queer coming-of-age story, extremely unauthorized superhero parody, and love letter to queer creatives. And filmed in a style that I can only describe as mixed media dystopian zine fused with pure camp. 

If that sounds baffling, that’s nothing against you or me, it’s merely part of the gleefully deranged, utterly fearless experience that is viewing this movie. IP doesn’t generally lend itself to much creativity in our incredibly corporatized environs, but Drew, who not only directs, but co-writes and stars as the lead, a trans girl who eventually blooms into her true identity as Joker the Harlequin, makes gleeful use of beloved fan favorites of the DC universe, as well as her many inspirations.

Batman’s problematic nature has been discussed and dissected long before this, but in “The People’s Joker” he’s not only a corporate fascist who’s unleashed a vicious army of drones onto Gotham, he’s also a predatory closeted gay man who grooms and exploits the penniless orphans he takes in. When Joker arrives in Gotham to pursue a comedy career after a harrowing childhood in Smallville - the kind only sunny Midwestern repression can dish out - she meets and falls for one of them, Jason Todd (Kane Distler), a young queer boy who has since refashioned himself into a Leto-esque Joker.

This isn’t only a setup for a toxic relationship that the older, wiser Joker the Harlequin uses as a guide for how to recognize abuse, it’s also a way for Drew to throw a whole lot of shade, with much of her ire reserved for Lorne Michaels and his toxic stranglehold on the state of comedy itself. He may be the catalyst for Harlequin’s rebellion and subsequently forming her own anti-comedy troupe that becomes her found family of recognizable DC villains, but Drew isn’t about to allow her own story to become subsumed in any sense.

And what a story, which doesn’t only incorporate fan conspiracy theories, Michelle Pfeiffer’s legendary Catwoman transformation, but shout-outs to “Goodfellas,” with Harlequin proclaiming she “always wanted to be a Joker,” and bringing in the Necronomicon itself for a cameo.

It’s a lot for a tight, 92 minute runtime that’s also a sincere laugh riot in the way stories from those who have not only survived but thrived tend to be. Drew’s most important inspirations get their due right away however. The film is dedicated to “Mom and Joel Schumacher.”

Directed By Women: T Blockers (2023)

By Andrea Thompson

Yes, the prodigal column has returned, just in time for spooky season, and my favorite holiday no less. Choosing a film to focus on was something of a dilemma, at least until I came across Alice Maio Mackay’s “T Blockers” while I was writing up a festival preview for the Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival Reeling. Then it became something of an easy choice.

Mackay was all of 17 when she made “T Blockers,” already has a respectable chunk of IMDB credits as well as a host of other accomplishments to her name, all of which shout upcoming filmmaker. Mackay is also trans, and the slim 74 minute runtime contains a multitude of complications her surrogate heroine Sophie (Lauren Last), also a trans filmmaker, must wrestle with once she discovers an ancient parasitic worm is preying on the bigots in her small Australian town.

Some of “T Blockers” is about exactly what you’d expect, and a fair amount of it is the rage of it all. There’s the viciousness of the anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, the minefield of attempting to find love in the midst of what seems like a neverending oppression in their daily lives, the crappy jobs the characters have to sustain themselves with as they struggle with every step in fulfilling their artistic ambitions, and the rising hordes of fascists who are rallying against any attempt they make at proclaiming their humanity.

No, the kids are not alright, but they are an extremely tight-knit group in the way people under siege tend to be. But bring on the camp, because Sophie and her bff and roommate Spencer (Lewi Dawson) refuse to be all gloom and doom. The gross-out humor isn’t only reserved for the worms which find plenty of willing hosts, but some of the less than healthy coping methods Spencer and Sophie utilize, which include drugs and vomit. Learn your limits kids, but in the meantime it fits well with the movie’s punk sensibilities, with the more obvious influence John Waters getting himself a name drop later.

These kids also have a kind of clear-eyed, lived wisdom it often takes their more privileged brethren years to acquire. They wait for no one’s approval and make no apologies for immediately fighting back once the possessed gather and go on the prowl, but they have no illusions that this will make their problems vanish, or even their lives necessarily easier. As Sophie tearfully acknowledges after facing a devastating personal loss, the bigots they’re really fighting can win even when they lose, and the battle will have to be fought again and again.

“T Blockers” isn’t merely a salute to Mackay’s B-movie sensibilities and their accompanying idols, it’s also a heartfelt tribute to queer filmmakers of the past, some of whom ultimately lost the battle with their own demons, but managed to create something for future generations to stand on. The movie’s framing device is a film made by a fellow trans filmmaker in the ‘90s who later committed suicide, but which nevertheless acts as both warning and guide so Sophie and her friends can put out the fire this time. In some cases by burning it all down, but I digress.

It’s so damn fun that the movie’s real flaw is all that more irritating (and somewhat spoilery), namely that the whiteness of it all somewhat bogs things down. The first victim of the parasites is Thai Hoa Steven Nguyen, and the other good guy casualty is another actor of color, Toshiro Glenn. In any other movie this would absolutely reek of hypocrisy, yet Mackay shows such promise, namely by making the most of the screen time both of them get. And Glenn’s is infused with a special tenderness due to his budding romance with Sophie, which finally gives her a taste of romantic love, untainted by fetishization.

So “T Blockers” is a success at getting its audience to consider the very questions it brings up. Namely, whether we really know an oppressive regime when we see one, and what exactly makes a monster.

52 Films By Women: Lingua Franca 2019

Lingua Franca

By Andrea Thompson

Urban isolation isn’t a new theme, but the protagonist of the tender drama “Lingua Franca” has a damn good reason to feel not just sequestered, but under siege. Olivia (Isabel Sandoval) is an undocumented Filipino transwoman living in Brighton Beach neighborhood in Brooklyn, and she is under constant threat of violence; not from any individual, but rather, an entire system built on her dehumanization. 

Watching it, I was reminded of a similar film, “The Garden Left Behind,” which in fact screened in the Film Girl Film Festival, and also followed an undocumented transwoman in New York City. But where Tina (Carlie Guevara) struggled to fathom individual intentions and their potential for harm, Olivia is facing far more sinister forces she is unable to predict, and which would deport her on a whim.

It is deportation rather than death which is Olivia’s ultimate fear, and Sandoval manages to capture the quiet terror of that word, one which is often, and very casually, tossed around by those who are wholly unaware of what it means for those it threatens to catch in its ever-widening maw. And Olivia is constantly aware that she could be literally snatched off the street at any moment with no consequences to her abductors. 

Even the tenuous stability she’s achieved perversely heightens her anxiety that it could all be taken from her. Unlike other transgender stories, Olivia has already transitioned, is mostly seen as a woman by the world at large, and has a mostly reliable source of income as the kind of caregiver we all wish could be looking after our loved ones. 

Lingua Franca

But it can, and often does, feel like a razor’s edge to Olivia even at the best of times, and Isabel Sandoval, who writes and directs in addition to playing the lead, emphasizes this tension with muted colors even as the characters and extras array themselves in brightness, as if attempting to deny the darkness which threatens to envelop their lives. Even home barely serves as a refuge, with the unsettling silence in the most intimate of spaces stretching on just enough to leave us wondering if there’s a shadowy threat lurking just beyond our vision. Which for Olivia, there is, perhaps even in plain sight.

It can be difficult not to define such a character by her pain, and Sandoval, who is a trans woman herself, takes care not to make Olivia a symbol, even when Trump’s voice is heard as he encourages everyone to give in to their worst instincts, only to be cut off as Olivia reaches her destination. Such politics may play a role in her life, but neither the film or Olivia define themselves by them.

And it doesn’t stop Olivia from yearning for more, as we discover shortly after she meets Alex (Eamon Farren), the adult grandson of the elderly Russian woman Olivia looks after. The two have more in common than they initially appear, Alex hailing from an immigrant background himself, and also feeling lonely despite his so-called friends, who are mostly toxic bro types he is unable to confide in. Alex may project confidence, but he is vulnerable in a way men are never supposed to be, struggling to maintain his sobriety after a stint in rehab. His and Olivia’s eventual connection is more than a meeting of souls though, with Olivia not only having some hot and heavy fantasies shortly after meeting him, but the two actually having passionate sex that is actually pretty sexy.

It seems like the perfect way for Olivia to combine love and security rather than saving up for a green card marriage of convenience. But Alex also royally screws up, telling her that a masked intruder was responsible for her stolen belongings rather than his friend searching for easy money, increasing Olivia’s fears of deportation. 

Lingua Franca

It’s especially cruel given how much Alex is privy to Olivia’s terror of the ICE, and when Alex does eventually propose, Sandoval cranks up the swooning music to romcom levels, underscoring how their life together is a fantasy. It seems strange for Olvia to hesitate at being offered what she’s basically been spending the entire film searching for, but as Sandolval said in an interview with The Cut, “At that moment, Olivia becomes more than a trans woman looking for love or an undocumented immigrant looking for papers...It’s Olivia’s journey toward agency and dignity and the ability to determine the course of her own life.” 

That taste of love leaves Olivia wondering if there isn’t something even better than she initially dreamed, and the film’s ending, which leaves her in an ambiguous state but committed to her own version of a happy ending, is nevertheless tinged with melancholy. Life will go on, “Lingua Franca” indicates, sometimes for no other reason than that’s what it does until it stops.

52 Films By Women: Suicide Kale (2016)

Screenshot

By Andrea Thompson

Can be a groundbreaking and a little cliche at the same time? I’d say yes, because the indie film “Suicide Kale” embraces this inherent contradiction. Note that I say indie film, a label which has been somewhat co-opted by major studios, mostly as an excuse for an endless series of cutesy quirks which typically act as a sort of substitution for an actual plot. But “Suicide Kale” is very much an indie film, and was actually shot over the course of a few days at the home of one of the leads using natural light and equipment filmmakers already owned.

In other words? “Suicide Kale” was clearly a labor of love, and not just because it revolves around two couples, one five years married and other other a mere month into dating. The same old story? Most definitely. But cliches can also be something of a privilege only granted to a select few, and “Suicide Kale” is on one level about taking a story that has been almost exclusively set among straight white people and enacting it among queer women, three of four of whom are women of color. 

These women are also given all the depth and character they are seldom granted by straight filmmakers, and that this movie is even came to exist is due to close collaboration, both among the crew, most of whom were queer women, and the four lead actors, who also improvised additional dialogue. Nearly the entire film also takes place in the aforementioned donated home, director Carly Usdin’s wife is one of the film’s producers, and also takes on cinematography duties, doing a damn good job exploiting the natural beauty of Southern California to even greater perfection, and screenwriter Brittani Nichols also plays one of the leads. 

Nichols couldn’t be accused of lazy writing, since her character Jasmine and new girlfriend Penn (Lindsay Hicks) find themselves in a situation where there is no script when they head to the home of their married friends Billie (Jasika Nicole) and Jordan (Brianna Baker, also the house loaner) for a dinner party and discover a hidden suicide note. What’s a houseguest and friend to do? Head back into the kitchen and continue as usual? Certainly not talk openly and honestly about what they’ve found, as that would put something of a damper on the film’s comedic spirit. 

And “Suicide Kale” is very much a comedy, one that allows for plenty of darkness in a place so brightly bohemian and liberal that couples share their dog with another family out of fear of placing it in a toxic environment. Good gravy. 

Anyhow, anyone expecting the wit to flow long will be disappointed, as the dialogue has more in common with the stuff of mumblecore than your typical romcom. If the note’s author is a mystery, other things are clear enough, like the fact that ‘perfect couple’ Billie and Jordan are experiencing difficulties. Jasika Nicole is the film’s standout, revealing everything not through dialogue, which is unremarkable by choice, but through her tone, which becomes almost unbearably fraught whenever she’s alone with her wife, to her wide, fake smile as she casually reveals how her marriage has decayed. Your heart breaks for her, and for the complexity women like her are rarely allowed to portray on-screen.

Screenshot

It’s revolutionary in its quiet way, as is (spoiler!) the lack of suicide in a film which not only consists of soley queer of characters, but is completely devoid of men. Bechdel test? Not needed here. If the film’s ending is also ambiguous, it packs more progress and general boldness in a mere 80 minutes than most films do in two hours, even managing to put the so-called healthy couple on ground that becomes nearly as shaky as the marriage which seems on the verge of shattering. Now that studios are supposedly hungry for diverse content, I’m hoping “Suicide Kale” isn’t a complete fluke, and that these kinds of stories will be told by a greater variety of people.

Suicide Kale is streaming on iTunes, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Kanopy.