52 Films By Women: D.E.B.S. (2004)

SYFY Wire

By Andrea Thompson

The 2004 film “D.E.B.S.” is one of those deeply silly gems that was unfairly panned, both critically and commercially, but was subsequently rewarded with cult status once the dust settled. 

In a sense, it’s easy to see why so many were disappointed. The movie’s trailer and marketing teased a comedic, action-packed espionage adventure with girls in short skirts that poked fun both at itself and the action genre. And it’s not that “D.E.B.S.” doesn’t deliver the laughs and even the action, but at its heart, “D.E.B.S.” is a love story dressed up in action movie tropes.

The premise is that girls known as D.E.B.S. are trained in espionage at a paramilitary academy. They’re recruited via a hidden test in the SATs, which measures someone’s aptitude for the spy life. And what qualities, according to the movie, makes someone an ideal candidate? The ability to “lie, cheat, fight, and kill.” Such a cynical view of what is essentially government work is rather bold for a time when mindless patriotism was at an all-time high, even if the organization seems to have the usual goal of beating bad guys bent on destruction. Or in this case, bad girl, Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster).

With such a premise, it’s surprising that the action and the espionage itself falls rather short, and it’s not just due to budgetary constraints. The early 2000s was not a good time for film, given that a conservative brand of sleaze reigned supreme and CGI was just starting to really come into its own, giving studios shortcuts they hadn’t had access to previously, often at the detriment to things like storytelling and character. And the effects in D.E.B.S. haven’t aged especially well, even if they remain fun, and include components such as a plaid force field to shield their school/training facility.

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But the action sequences tend to lack urgency and suspense, and they’re actually rather boring. The love story is the interesting part, and it’s both a product of its time and ahead of it. Sure, sexual tension between a hero and their antagonist isn’t new by any stretch, but it is rare for both of them to be women. 

In true spy fashion, the two meet on a stakeout, where Amy (Sara Foster) is a top recruit, and actually the only one at the academy to get a perfect score, while Lucy is the villain who inherited a crime empire from her family, and has recently reappeared with plans to meet up with a Russian assassin. The logical next step is a dastardly plan, but as Amy discovers when she’s separated from her team and encounters Lucy, the meeting was actually a blind date. It went terrible, but sparks immediately fly between Lucy and Amy, and Lucy is soon abducting Amy at gunpoint to go on a date, and robbing a bank so she has another excuse to meet up with her. Such is their connection that Amy actually ends up running off with Lucy for a week, kicking off a montage of cute relationship moments, with the rest of the organization assuming Amy’s been captured.

The fallout is bound to come, and it’s brutal even before the rest of the D.E.B.S. find Amy and Lucy in bed together. Writer-director Angela Robinson, who is gay herself and typically includes LGBTQ themes in her films, makes it clear that much of her friends’ disgust with her isn’t just due to Amy falling for a villain, but falling for a female one. That someone who previously identified as straight and dated men in the past would suddenly fall for someone of the same gender is incomprehensible. Even if most eventually come around, and one even keeps her secret for as long as she can, Amy is also called a gay slut and a whore, and she insists she’s not gay, even as her attraction to Lucy grows. 

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While the D.E.B.S. demand that Amy hide her relationship with Lucy out of fear of their organization becoming a laughing stock, it’s Lucy and her supportive sidekick Scud (Jimmi Simpson) who come off as downright enlightened, especially when Lucy decides to get Amy back. Even if Lucy’s first instinct is an evil scheme, she eventually decides to become a better person, returning much of what she stole and sending Amy adorable presents. It’s far, far, easier to get behind the two of them then the so-called good guys who demand silence and conformity.

When Amy and Lucy finally do decide to commit to each other, Robinson is also sadly aware of what the limits of a happy ending are. Amy’s friends might come around, but the agency does not, with the two secretly departing together with implications of traveling to Barcelona so Amy can follow her dream of going to art school. They drive off not into a beautiful new day, but under the cover of night, with just a hint of sunset offering a glimpse of a better, happier, and more enlightened future.

52 Films By Women: Bright Star (2009)

Bright Star

By Andrea Thompson

Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” manages to accomplish quite a bit, not the least of which is a love story where the lovers not only rarely get any time alone together, but fall in love in front of the whole family. It can make passion difficult to find, but “Bright Star” does find it so beautifully. But I much prefer Campion’s criminally underrated 2003 film “In The Cut,” which is a far darker take on not just love, but our concept of it.

Not so with “Bright Star,” which goes all in on the passionate love story between Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and the poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw). It kicks off in 1818, during the Regency Era, which gave us one of the most prominent artists of all time in Jane Austen, was about 20 years from giving way to the more romantic, evangelical Victorian Era.

“Bright Star” is certainly reminiscent of Austen in how it keeps the sexual tension at high levels without its heroine engaging in sex. Campion brings on the undertones from the opening, with the most sexual sewing closeup I’ve ever seen, as the camera lingers longingly on the needle as it burst through the thread, with the thread seeming to have a life of its own as its follows, spilling over the fabric like sperm. Am I reading into things? Let’s just say that anyone who thinks I’m exaggerating either clearly hasn’t seen the film or wasn’t paying attention.

Unfilled longing is the cornerstone of many a love story, but in “Bright Star,” a romance that would forever remain unfulfilled, makes pining its beating heart. Even Martin Scorsese had an easier time of it when he proved in “The Age of Innocence” that he knew his way around a bodice-ripper in spite of each and every bodice remaining neatly and exquisitely in place. But his ill-fated romance took place in the heart of a New York high society fully embedded in repressed romanticism.

Bright Star

Not so with Campion’s “Bright Star,” as the romance blooms and dies with nature itself. As Fanny and Keats fall in love, Campion lavishes them with luminous sunlight as Fanny’s body is practically ravaged by the wind and curtains flowing towards her. She even welcomes butterflies into the room, much to the annoyance of her mother. When Keats must depart for London to Fanny’s deep despair, the butterflies perish in the cold that will likewise bring on the tuberculosis that will kill him.

Their love is also somewhat unconventional, even if it contains a multitude of conventions. Like many a daunted lover, Keats is poor; his success and fame came posthumously. It makes him reluctant to become attached to Fanny when he cannot afford to provide the support a husband is supposed to give, so Fanny, who has already developed an interest in him by the time “Bright Star” begins, is the one who pursues him. She makes a point to go out of her way to strike up conversations with him, and even tries to learn about the poetry that is the work of his short life, but which she feels is beyond her grasp. She’s even willing to put up with his friend, fellow poet, and in many ways, his wealthy benefactor, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider in full smarm mode).

Brown is also the far more common type of love interest, with whom Fanny shares the type of charged banter often reveals a sensitive soul underneath. But sometimes a jerk is just a jerk, and in “Bright Star” Brown is the kind of entitled, pretentious jackass who constantly demeans Fanny for her interest in fashion, and her growing connection with Keats, which he believes will ruin him and his chances. His selfishness prevents him from perceiving that love can be a source of strength, even when Fanny inspires Keats to write what would become his most beloved poems, including the sonnet the movie takes its title from. 

Bright Star

Fanny pushes back at Brown’s attempts to demean her in a powerful contrast to the quietly powerful connection she shares with Keats, which is based on mutual respect, and their gradual, serene acceptance that they are unable to live without each other. In a sense, Fanny is both realized and not in “Bright Star.” She is wholly herself without proudly disdaining traditional femininity and the interests that typically accompany it, defending and embracing her passion for designing and making her own clothes. But once she becomes Keats’s muse, Campion allows the love story to overwhelm all other facets of Fanny’s life, which was rich and full.

Then there was the public perception of Fanny, which has greatly shifted over the years, and her friendship with Keats’s sister, also named Fanny, and which is completely absent. It’s not exactly surprising that Campion would want to keep us in thrall to one of the great unfulfilled loves of history, but Fanny also eventually built a life outside of it, and I wish we’d caught a sense of that. I suppose not every movie can be “Wild Nights With Emily,” but some films seem to raise your standards, which, much like a tragic love story, can be both a blessing and a curse.

52 Films By Women: Point Break (1991)

Twentieth Century Fox

By Andrea Thompson

For all the bluster and male machismo on display in Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 cult masterpiece “Point Break,” there’s a subtlety to it. Yes, behind the abs, the beaches, the surfing, the action sequences that include pit bulls being thrown around, airplane jumps, and robberies...there are some deep undercurrents.

The movie actually spent quite a few years in development, with various directors, casts, and titles attached and discarded by the time Bigelow came into the picture while she was still married to James Cameron, who is one of the producers. Both of them also apparently did quite a bit of rewriting on the script, even if they never received credit for it, and the result was a film that contains some of the best characters and action cinema has ever seen.

This rebirth of sorts accounts for much of the movie’s tone, which could be called outright ridiculous at times, even if it’s always enjoyable. “Point Break” is for all intents and purposes an 80s movie, and it has nearly all the staples of the decade’s cop dramas. There’s the loose cannon cop, the boss who takes every chance to eviscerate him, the ridiculous plot that includes surfers who rob banks to fund their totally awesome lifestyles, blustery banter, and its apparent embrace of all things machismo. Even our lead rookie cop Johnny Utah (oh, what a name), played by Keanu Reeves, is a former Rose Bowl-winning football quarterback.

Dig a little deeper though, and there’s much of the more progressive vibes that would come to define the 90s. Take the love interest, Tyler (Lori Petty). A name like that practically screams androgynous, and sure enough, Tyler is no unflappable blonde beach goddess in a bikini framed in a holo of light as she soaks up the California sun. When Utah first meets her, she’s dressed in a wetsuit, barely even framed as she scrambles in the chaos of the ocean to save Johnny from drowning after his disastrous attempt to learn how to surf. When he tells her his name, she shouts back, “Who cares!”

With her brunette pixie haircut and deeply 90s wardrobe, Tyler is feminine but not objectified. Her and Utah’s relationship, which eventually does become romantic, is far more equal than in most action movies. Tyler is the one who teaches Utah to surf, and her presence and framing itself is a commentary on the sexism of the genre. Bigelow literally films Tyler and Utah on the same level, rather than lingering lasciviously on Petty’s body, and Tyler constantly pushes back against the toxicity she encounters. When she is eventually, inevitably held hostage, that is when her wardrobe becomes far more traditionally feminine, with Bigelow dressing Tyler in a short white nightie.

Tyler is also the one to warn Utah about Bodhi (Patrick Swayze, RIP) one of the most iconically charismatic villains the movies have ever produced. From the start, Bodhi and Utah’s relationship has a deep undercurrent of homoeroticsm, with the kind of intense, love at first sight moments that’s typically framed as romantic, as Utah admires Bodhi’s surfing prowess as he is indeed framed and surrounded by the sunlit waves.

The late Swayze threw everything into this role, and it shows. He is entirely believable as a leader of a group of surfers so completely under his sway that they remain true believers even as they’re bleeding to death, a result of Bodhi chasing greater and greater highs.

Twentieth Century Fox

That is indeed what makes this, or rather his, group unique. They aren’t exactly robbing banks for the money, which they use to fund their surfing adventures. They justify it by a kind of spiritual philosophy, which Bodhi neatly sums up when he tells them, “We are here to show those guys that are inching their way on the freeways in their metal coffins that the human spirit is still alive.” It’s a grand statement, but then, junkies are pretty good at rationalizing their behavior. These guys risk their lives surfing the biggest waves, and their crime spree is little more than an extension of that same sickness. 

As Tyler points out in one of her many warnings to Utah, Bodhi can sense that Utah shares his sickness, and it’s no accident that Bodhi’s true toxicity is revealed via Tyler. He may wax sad about how he despises violence, but he sets up Tyler’s kidnapping so perfectly, Utah has no choice but to go with Bodhi’s demands and help him rob a bank. Bodhi may grieve when things go horribly wrong and the bodies start piling up, but he refuses to stop, even as he loses the rest of his team.

As Utah is pulled into circumstances that take him closer to, and eventually beyond the edge and he suffers his own losses, he in a sense becomes Bodhi’s final victim. He remains under his sway, even after he manages to track Bodhi down, overpower him, and subdue him. Ultimately, Utah can’t bear to see his wild man in a cage, and releases him so Bodhi can die doing what he loves: surfing the once-in-a-lifetime wave that will kill him, while Utah walks away and tosses his badge in the ocean.

Bigelow makes all this fun, tragic, and yes, deeply sexy without lingering too much on the bodies of the various surfers, male or female. It takes a hell of a director to get us to feel so much of the rush her characters feel, whether in the ocean, on a robbery, an iconic foot chase, or free falling through the air. You’d think it would’ve led to far more action films directed by women, but alas, change comes slow...until it doesn’t.

52 Films By Women: Born in Flames (1983)

Kanopy

By Andrea Thompson

Since everyone seems to be in a revolutionary kind of mood, it seemed like a good time to check out “Born in Flames,” which is another of those films that remained unseen despite the enthusiastic reaction from so many in the feminist community. So I finally decided it was time to correct my lack of knowledge, and...wow.

“Born in Flames” is a deeply radical film, and it will remain so for probably the entirety of history. Many films are being rediscovered and lauded for being ahead of their time, but “Born in Flames” doesn’t just acknowledge, or more accurately, tackle head on what we’re only beginning to approach today, but it takes on genuinely radical actions to deal with them. In fact, some would be justified in calling said actions terrorism, and the discomfort around them remains in today’s environment, although some of that is due to to circumstances out of writer-director Lizzie Borden’s (gotta love the name) control. After 2001, there was going to be more discomfort than usual seeing a bomb go off on top of the World Trade Center building, even if it was designed to take out media messaging, not people.

The result isn’t so much indie filmmaking as guerrilla filmmaking, and the only reason this movie was probably allowed to exist in the first place is that it takes place ten years after the United States underwent a peaceful revolution that’s become known as the War of Liberation, and became a socialist democracy. The problem is that the environment seems all too familiar: a society that vaunts the progress it’s made even as it remains in the throes of high unemployment, and institutional as well as everyday sexism, racism, and classism.

The resulting vision of New York City is hard to pin down to a genre, let alone define. Filmed over a period of five years, and depending on which article you read, on a budget of about $40,000 or $70,000, “Born in Flames” seems part documentary since actual protests as well as staged ones were used, as well as futurist, sci-fi, vérité, queer, and of course, deeply feminist.

Nearly all the main characters are women, many are Black, most are lesbians, and its vision of just how one should fight back against a system which aims to dehumanize and demean are deeply complex. Some women have chosen to fight back via two different pirate radio stations as they broadcast various messages of anger against government actions, while one, Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield) has chosen more direct action by becoming a leader in the Women’s Army, which confronts everyday instances of sexism such as street harassment by leading groups of women on bicycles to fight back against the men who brutalize women on the street.

Adelaide is also the one pushing for more direct, violent action against a state that is cutting programs for women, holding them responsible for the hostility and outright assaults they experience, and trying to drive them back into the home by prioritizing male needs and creating new programs such as paying women for housework. But the women, which include Kathryn Bigelow as one of a trio of white feminist editors of a socialist newspaper, remain divided in their oppression. What finally does unite them is Adelaide’s arrest and death under suspicious circumstances while in police custody.

Moma.org

What follows is a kind of feminist wish fulfillment, where women who traditionally divided by race, class, and sexuality band together against their oppressors. Sisterhood becomes powerful, as does their anger, which practically leaps from every frame as “Born in Flames” as it gives a rousing call to action for all women to unite. It’s no accident that the film was rediscovered in 2016, just as Trump was elected and women took the streets and to voice their rage once again. It’s a number that’s loomed large in the history of this film, given the station for one of the pirate radio stations is actually 2016.

In the midst of an election that threatens to keep Trump in power, “Born in Flames” might become disturbingly relevant in a way no one could have foreseen. In just a few months, how largely this film will loom in our culture might be revealed even further. 

52 Films By Women: Boys State (2020)

A24

By Andrea Thompson

Among the many fascinating things about “Boys State,” the documentary that recently debuted among Apple TV+, is that it’s basically a meditation on the state of modern masculinity that’s also co-directed by a woman. 

Every year since 1935, the American Legion runs a civics experiment called Boys State, wherein high school students spend a week building a government from the ground up. Assigned into random political parties, the boys then elect their own officials, with the position of Governor being the top spot. So what exactly does that look like in our current moment, when we’re grappling with how we define masculinity, femininity, and gender itself? Amanda McBaine and her creative partner/husband and co-director Jesse Moss decided to find out by filming what transpired in 2018.

Once you get over the simple fact that all these boys are gathered together free from worries about pandemics, social distancing, and masks, what emerges is a complex portrait that’s not so much about our future as our present. All of these young men are ambitious, driven, and serious about their political aspirations. And why not? Past participants have included politicians as wide-ranging as Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, and Cory Booker. High hopes are not unreasonable.

What happens in “Boys State” isn’t too surprising then, even at its most shocking. When those so eager to participate in the political system try to build their own, they’re not going to attempt to build something better than replicate what they’ve learned from us. It isn’t long before some very recognizable, wholly depressing patterns start to emerge, along with some political stars in the making, a few of whom will no doubt regret being so honest about what their adult counterparts smilingly justify and evade. And more than a few made me wonder if they were going to kill me when they grew up.

Ben Feinstein was bound to unsettle me from the moment he brought out his talking Reagan doll, and sure enough, he quickly became the architect behind some of the most vicious political attacks on his opponents, both of whom were young men of color. Others may be channeling Donald Trump in their emphasis on making their state/political position great again, but Feinstein is the one who quickly emerges as a far more masterful manipulator. He may be a more complex type, but losing both his legs at age three to meningitis hasn’t made him compassionate as firmly believing that individual failings are to blame for a disadvantaged position, race, gender, or any other factors be damned. He is the one who comes from a comfortable place, only to prevent others from achieving the same privileges.

A24

The real star that emerges is thankfully someone far different. Steven Garza’s cited inspirations may include the likes of Bernie Sanders, and far more surprisingly, Napoleon Bonaparte, but Obama is probably the leader that will spring to mind when he gives his first jaw-droppingly inspirational speech that leaves his competitors scared stiff and his fellow party members standing and cheering. His backstory is the stuff great biographies are made of. He’s the son of Mexican immigrants, with a mother who was undocumented for a time, and he’s also the first of his siblings to get past his freshman year of high school. And for all his openness about his left-leaning politics in a deeply conservative environment, his political instincts are sharp enough to leave his work as a gun control activist unmentioned until later in his campaign for Governor, the highest office available. 

Much like another, far less effective recent film about politics, “Boys State” has a clear scapegoat for the dysfunction - political parties, even kicking off with a dire warning from no less than George Washington about their unsettling effects on government. But while few would argue that our electoral system is in desperate need of change, political parties are not the primary motivators behind the documentary’s most heartbreaking, and at times shocking, moments. It is us. It’s always us

52 Films By Women: Represent (2020)

Music Box Films

By Andrea Thompson

“Represent” is an exception among the many political documentaries, which have become quite prolific recently. At their best, they tend to reveal unsettling truths, but not much food for thought, at least for the most part. There are exceptions of course, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Our politics, which tended to comprise various shades of gray, haven’t so much polarized the way everyone believes. Rather, they’ve been stripped to reveal what we’ve become, and how we could deteriorate into something far worse if things continue to unravel.

But “Represent” doesn’t just show the common ground that exists between the various aspiring Midwestern politicians it follows, all of them women, it got me to do something I didn’t think was possible in our current climate: sympathize with a Republican running for office. The documentary could never have made me vote for her even if I could have, but I challenge the most ardent Democrat not to feel some compassion for Julie Cho, who decides to run for state representative in Evanston, a liberal suburb of Chicago.

Cho is certainly the most complex of the three women director Hillary Bachelder follows for her feature debut. Cho is in many ways the ultimate American success story - an immigrant who fled an oppressive country, in her case North Korea, and saw the best of America in the small town she and her family ended up in. Distrust of any state or national authority was already a given for Cho, who soon found herself drawn to the Republican party of the 80s, which advocated for small government.

It’s not that Bryn Bird and Myya Jones are less fascinating, they’re just on more predictable paths as Democrats. Bird is a farmer and happily married white mother of two small children who runs for township trustee in her small rural town of Granville, Ohio, and Jones is a 22-year-old Black woman who’s freshly graduated and decides to run for mayor of Detroit, then state representative when her mayoral bid fails.

Bachelder doesn’t need to do much to convey just how much gender plays into all three campaigns, or how much more Jones has to shoulder as a Black woman, a demographic which is the backbone of the Democratic voting block, but doesn’t seem to get much support once they decide to put themselves front and center. 

Not that Cho or Bird have it easy. Cho, who makes gerrymandering and the effect it has on suppressing minority votes the central issue of her platform, doesn’t just encounter open scorn, and even threats of violence when she goes out campaigning, but a complete lack of support from her own party. They become so bent on silencing her they pressure her to drop out, and in one case a top official outright hangs up on her during a phone call. There’s also numerous other macro and microaggressions, including some casual racism at a Republican luncheon.

Bird has her own issues. Her area is heavily Republican and never had a progressive candidate representing them. The trustee board also consists of a very entrenched old boys network who constantly undermine the only (also Republican) woman in the room, whom Bird is angling to replace. So Bird has an uphill fight of her own, even if she does manage to convince quite a few others to get involved in political campaigning for the first time.

Under such circumstances, it can often be difficult to not define subjects by their worst experiences, and Bachelder avoids this by revealing some of their biggest obstacles during the latter half of “Represent,” which include Cho’s past cancer diagnosis, Bird’s mother passing away, and Jones recouting her childhood sexual abuse.

Music Box Films

The fly-on-the-wall approach doesn’t always prove to be the best, given that some of the more minute aspects of their political journeys fall through the cracks. But it just might be a fitting angle for the mostly non-flashy style of campaigning all three candidates embrace. That Myya, who has all the characteristics of a political star on the rise, doesn’t overwhelm the others with her dynamic, intensely charismatic presence that’s a natural fit for the social media she embraces (and eventually includes a viral rap video), is especially impressive, reflecting Bachelder’s commitment to give equal weight to all of her subjects.

The doc is also curiously reluctant to embrace its influences. That “Represent,” which takes place over the course of 2017-8, was partially inspired by the influx of women in politics in 2016 is evident. But as the doc points out in its opening, there have been many cases when the number of female politicians have suddenly seemed to increase. If it’s treated as a lark each time, then the timing of the film’s release, which coincides with Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris as his VP, is impeccable. Who knows? Maybe the normalization of women in office could arrive sooner than any of us would have allowed.

52 Films By Women: The Last Mistress (2007)

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

What makes a movie sexy is often as difficult to define as what makes a comedy funny, or a horror film scary. But there’s no question that the 2007 Catherine Breillat film “The Last Mistress” isn’t just sexy, it’s a classic bodice-ripper. Set in Paris in 1835, a time and place that always seems ripe for cinematic swooning, the film features a familiar scenario that Breillat doesn’t so much subvert as explode, albeit with empathy and compassion.

Ryno de Marigny (Fu'ad Aït Aattou) is penniless in a fashion distinctive of the French aristocracy, and is about to wed Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida) the young, virtuous blonde jewel of Parisian society, to much disapproval and speculation. Ryno is what’s known as a rake, who swears he’s reformed and is deeply, sincerely in love with Hermangarde. The trouble comes from the woman who is in indeed the other side of his would-be bride’s virtuous coin - the dark-haired, deeply sexual spaniard Vellini, who is ferocity itself in Asia Argento’s spellbinding hands.

Vellini has been Ryno’s mistress for ten years, which as one character remarks, is rather shocking when there’s no legal ceremony compelling them to stay together. So how exactly did these two come together, and why did they stay together? Ryno reveals all when Hermangarde’s spirited grandmother (Claude Sarraute) demands to know their story so she can determine if he should really marry her granddaughter. 

IMDB

From the beginning, Ryno and Vellini’s love was about as tempestuous as can be expected, full of not just passion and fury, but violence and blood. The second their eyes meet in mutual dislike and lust, neither of them stood a chance. But as Ryno continues telling the story of  their now doomed (in one way or another) romance, it’s far more complicated than a simple case of mutual emotional abuse. The truly tragic thing about their now quite dangerous liaison is it once blossomed into one of mutual love, resulting in a daughter. When that daughter perished in a tragic accident, the affection that grew between them curdled into an addictive toxicity.

If Ryno is both more aware of it and eager to escape it, it’s less due to any quality of his than the fact that he has more of an opportunity for a life. Yet even Ryno with his supposed freedoms is stifled by the mores of their time, which insists on prescribed roles and conformity.His genuine feelings for Hermangarde are based as much on reverence as real love, and you can hardly ask such a revered wife to demean herself by acting like a mistress. 

Nor can Hermangarde bring herself to allow her husband to see her in anything less than a pristine state of emotions. When she learns that Vellini has followed them to their beautiful home in the countryside, supposedly removed from the decadence of Paris, she doesn’t allow Ryno to see the tears she sheds. And she continues to hide the worst of the emotional fallout, even when she sees for herself that Ryno has been unable to resist rekindling his relationship with Vellini even though he is aware that Hermangarde is pregnant. When she miscarries, she is unable to berate Ryno although he begs her to, desperate to break the silence his actions have wrought.

IMDB

There’s nothing like watching high society ruin the lives of its denizens, but few have depicted such a decline like Catherine Breillat has. If it’s narrated from a male perspective, she found the perfect vessel in Fu'ad Aït Aattou, who has the pouty lips, perfectly wavy hair, chiseled cheekbones, and piercing eyes that are just masculine enough to make him believable as a playboy, yet vulnerable enough to sell a conflicted soul. He holds his own against the far more experienced players, most of whom are women, and include Léa Seydoux in one of her first on-screen appearances in a small role as Vellini’s servant and occasional lover, since apparently in France even the mistresses have mistresses.

To say that these women are ahead of their time isn’t exactly accurate. Many of the female characters, most of whom are older, are indeed out of step with the times, but much of that is merely due to the world becoming a far more sentimental and evangelical one than from what they knew in their youth. They accept the unhappiness in their lives as a simple matter of fact, casually discussing the men who flagrantly flaunt their privilege and lovers as a matter of course. It’s a quietly powerful commentary on the lack of any options or alternatives these women have, despite the wealth and sumptuous surroundings Breillat magnificently depicts in all their decadent glory. 

When even people such as these have such a small chance at happiness, watching it slip away from those who have the best of intentions feels like a tragedy for all, from those involved to the ones who sadly watch from afar as it crumbles and slips away.

52 Films By Women: Pride and Prejudice: Atlanta (2019)

Mylifetime.com

By Andrea Thompson

Watching “Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta” is a jarring experience at times, because listing the ways it doesn’t do justice to the source material almost seems beside the point. It’s not trying to do anything but be a Lifetime movie, only with less dire stakes than the genre is typically known for.

This only makes sense, given that “Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta” is a Lifetime movie. Lifetime hasn’t taken nearly as much grief since the Hallmark Channel made it look edgy, and “Pride” has them at their lightest. There are no abducted teenage girls, no abused wives, no horrific family secrets unearthed, only the fluffy stakes of the lightest of relationship dramas. 

The movie let us know what we can expect right away, with Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Bennet (Tiffany Hines) rushing late into the church where her pastor father preaches in all her relatable career woman glory, with just the barest of bones of a plot, which involves protesting a planned strip mall in an effort to preserve the Atlanta Lizzie knows and loves. Needless to say, there’s a sense that her problems are going to be solved pretty easily.

Nypost.com

Whether that disappoints mostly  depends on what you love about Jane Austen’s most cherished novel. “Pride” may sand down most of the story’s edges, but it’s one of the only adaptations I’ve seen that successfully modernizes the novel. Part of why that is is due to another reason the movie is so unique: it’s the only adaptation that features an all-Black cast. In their close-knit community, various social niceties feel like they have about as big an impact as they would in Austen’s time. 

It’s one of the major obstacles to transporting pretty much any of Jane Austen’s plots to a modern setting. What seemed enjoyable then becomes frivolous in a time when women can leave the house by themselves, have sex before marriage, and earn their own money. It also doesn’t hurt that the gulf between the middle class and the wealthy seems about as extreme, with the kind of gorgeous palatial homes many of Austen’s characters would probably appreciate.

What’s missing from the “Pride” are flaws, ironically enough. A movie with no villains is generally a good thing, but the men, even Wickham (Phillip Mullings Jr.) reveal themselves to be basically good guys at heart. Even more ironic, it’s the women who aren’t done justice, with many around Lizzie almost seeming embarrassed by her intelligence and single status. The lessons many of them seem to learn involve being good wives, from Lizzie learning to see what a nice guy Darcy (Juan Antonio) really is to Lydia learning to behave better after Wickham gets her pregnant. 

Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta

The real hero of the story is Mrs.Bennet (Jackée Harry, who’s having a ball), who is the author of a self-help book about finding a husband, which makes her rather embarrassed that all of her daughters remain single. She is also the movie’s narrator, and her marriage is founded on real love rather than misunderstanding and resignation. She’s the impetus for much of the plot, from snooping on social media to investigate a prospective suitor’s prospects, to encouraging Jane (Raney Branch) to take an Uber rather than drive so she’ll need a ride back. Her closing narration, which extols the virtues of love and commitment, is even enjoyable.

So while you won’t find a trace of Austen’s trademark wit and irony, but “Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta” might still be fun viewing if you’re looking for mostly harmless, relentlessly upbeat viewing.