Desert Hearts

The setting for this film is absolutely perfect. Gorgeous landscapes, and music (Patsy Cline, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jim Reeves, and so much more) perfect for the period. Natalie Cooper wrote a great script that feels just right.

Patricia Charbonneau is just perfect as Cay, a free spirit that just wants to fly. She lights up the room every time she enters. She was the perfect tonic for the repressive Helen Shaver's ailment.

What I really liked was that this was a realistic love story. It wasn't about sex, but about two people finding out what they really want. It didn't end in a neat package, but with promise. It mirrored life in that respect; it just featured two women, that's all.

Audra Lindley was great as Cay's stepmother, and added more realism to the story. Andra Akers was really cool as her friend. Jeffrey Tambor was also featured in a bit part.

I just wish that I had six weeks to spend in the desert. It was so beautiful.

Reading some of the other comments, and the reviews at the time it came out, I suppose my feeling about this movie must be extremely idiosyncratic. Yet, all the people I rope in to watching this film seem to agree with me - so this is to give a counterpoint to the tepid (at best) comments I've read so far.

This is a beautifully photographed film, from beginning to end. It perfectly captures the ambiance and look of the Reno area in 1959 (I know because I was there); not just in appearance, but in the characters as well. Period music is expertly used throughout the film, with the final choice of Ella Fitzgerald's "I Wished on the Moon" a haunting and perfect end. I can't help but think that because this film was one of the first to spend several uncompromising minutes devoted to lesbian lovemaking that people tended to focus almost exclusively on that scene - and make pronouncements based on their own comfort levels with how it was filmed. This scene is really quite beautiful, but it could be left out and the sex only hinted at without harming the flow of the film. The two main characters are well-thought-out and fully realized; both fine performances (Helen Shaver is near perfect). All of the supporting characters are interesting and perfectly believable. The intelligent, witty script gives deep insight into the characters with minimal time spent. The humor is subtle but satisfying. Two examples: 1) when "the professor" comes out of her room after brooding for several days she is asked by another guest what she has been doing in there - the eccentric, grizzled ranch manager (Audra Lindley - who looks like she has been burned into the Nevada landscape)answers like a schoolmarm, "whatever it is, it's too deep for us to understand" 2) while horseback riding in the desert a Marilyn wannabe in blue jeans gets off her horse and says "my girdle is killing me!" For me this is a near perfect film. The only thing close to a criticism I can muster is the Kay character seems a bit too contemporary (but his is a very minor point and the role is well played). Unlike the other commentors, I think the characters are fascinating, each scene stands on its own as a perfect little vignette, and not only did I find the film enjoyable when it first came out, I have watched it at least 18 times since and it always holds up beautifully. Watch this movie with an open mind, void of preconceptions and value judgements, and see if you aren't enchanted (or at least entertained).

A stuffy professor heads to Reno for a quickie divorce and becomes infatuated with a young woman who lives at the ranch where she's staying. Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau have sizzling chemistry as the romantic leads and this film has a nice distinction of being one of the few lesbian themed films that doesn't end in appalling tragedy or sugary sweetness. It's down to earth, smart, sexy, and incredibly entertaining.

"Desert Hearts" has quite a bit going for it. It captures 1950s Reno and environs, the biggest little city in the world, pretty well: great old cars, red earth, dried twisted windspent driftwood, fragrant summer sagebrush, the noisy 7/24 casinos with 99 cent meals, suntanned faces, rickety ranch motels on the outskirts of town, snow-veined Sierras, and the pop music that is no worse than what we listen to. The story pulls one in.

Aura Lindley is the matriarch of the ranch and has bonded with one of her tenants. A new one arrives, an Eastern sophisticate, who refers to herself as a "distinguished author," and has a lot of books schlepped into her room. Discord! Helen Shaver, the professor, is rather neat and in addition to her books carries around a lot of savoir-faire. She doesn't look bad either. The movie also has going for it the presence of Patricia Charbonneau, who must have one of the most interesting crania on the planet, and the soft parts to match. She is possessed of a sinewy yet feminine figure and carries herself with presence. Her hair and her irises are the color of glowing anthracite. ("Charbonneau", indeed.) And those dazzling big choppers, appalling and appealing. She outs herself on a walk with Shaver who responds momentarily, impulsively. Jealous, Lindley throws Shaver out, suspecting something more intimate has happened than actually has.

The intimacy follows in a later scene when Charbonneau tracks Shaver to her downtown hotel room and initiates a long, erotic love scene which isn't at all pornographic or exploitative. The two women love one another, but one is after all an uptight distinguished author and the other, though equally intelligent, goes with the flow, as they say, and has been "kicked out of college for unnatural acts."

The film ends ambiguously. Can they get together? Can they compromise their life styles? Can a distinguished author carry on an affair with another woman in the 1950s? Not including Gertrude Stein? Can our desert wildflower find a home as a potted plant surrounded by geraniums on a windowsill on MacDougall Street in the Village? Will an author find happiness with a woman after her marriage to a man has ended in boredom and disaster? Will -- I forgot what the original rhetorical question was.

This is an easy movie to get through. Nothing in it leaps out at you. It doesn't pound you over the head with its modern sensibilities. We're not invited to condemn those morons back in the 50s for their attitudes towards gays, nor are we urged to feel guilty because we are accused of some lingering distaste ourselves. The movie sort of shrugs at these issues and says, well, that's the way it was. Not exactly a time that embraced gays but, at least on the outskirts of Reno, not exactly a time of torture either. One wishes Shaver and Charbonneau well as they ride off on the train into the sunset.

When it comes to love movies - usually we get a man loves a woman and hopefully vice versa. In this case we get two women ... or at least one that is quite sure what she wants and who she loves. At a time when love like that was more than just forbidden .... and even those who may have feelings of ... well let's just say even they had issues to deal with those things.

A womans touch - no pun intended - something the movie really needed and profited from. I'm not saying that a man wouldn't have done a solid job with the source novel, but you feel that it was crucial to have a woman for this. Not just for the intimate scenes. This really is an underrated movie, with superb performances - not just for the time it was made, but in general.