The Girl

Lesbian noir romance about a street wandering painter who almost looks like a man in a feminine sort of way who falls in love with a singer who tries, and fails to keep their romance to one night. As the two spiral together the fact that the singer has other lovers (in the hopes of furthering her career) becomes problematic as a jealous man with a thing for the singer won't let go. Good but not great film is like ten thousand other tales except the leads are two women. The change is enough to keep it watchable even when the plot sort of sputters along, though if you're in a less forgiving mood you'll be reaching for the remote. The sex is mostly kissing and hugging so those looking for more graphic thrills best look elsewhere. I particularly liked the fact that the people are not perfect beauties, they have moles and real skin. The painters other lover is wonderfully sexy in her plainness. I think the exchange between the painter and this woman that made me click with the film. In it they remark about how they are both in love with women who aren't their type, the painter speaking of the singer while the lover is speaking of her bed mate. Worth a look if you want a film thats familiar yet a change of pace, though yet again wait for cable since the four bucks I spent to see it wasn't really worth it.

9/9 7:00 pm THE GIRL (**1/2)

Sexy but thin lesbian love story. Male characters are silent which is very effective. The decidedly feminine pace is refreshingly unsettling. On hand for the Q & A after this world premiere were director Sande Zeig, producer Dolly Hall, writer Monique Wittig and actress Agathe de la Boulaye who told an amazing story about how a couple of drunken yahoos became completely lost when her butch yet slightly fem character emerged from her trailer. Agathe's performance was remarkably patient which was a nice change from the obsession usually depicted in these kinds of stories.

I have absolutely never ever felt like leaving during a film I was watching in the cinema - bar this one. I couldn't stand the pacing up and down the Seine. This film is pretentious in its aim to appear arty and fails dismally in its eager to engage the audience (at least this viewer) with a thin lesbian story line of attraction and jealousy. The main characters remain cardboard figures, no real emotions at stake at any point. Very few directors have managed to create an erotic and sensual atmosphere between two women. I can think of only four: Patricia Rozema (When Night is Falling), Andy/Larry Wachowski (Bound), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) and Lukas Moodyson (Show Me Love). But of course, it's a matter of taste - or perhaps I've been missing something?

This movie can't quite commit to being noir and so comes off as a pale translation of what a woman might imagine noir to look like if it was focused upon the female characters. All foreplay and no action. What non-sexual action that does take place is anemic. The toughest thing in the movie is the attitude that affects an insouciance while betraying that indifference in the plot. The thing about tough guy noir movies is the action the pace of plot development hits you repeatedly like a drunk boxing champ down on his luck and only doing what the boss paid him to do. The personal and emotional indifference is as hard as the cold cement reaching up to claim your face as you fall. None of that is in this movie. It is, as another reviewer points out, self conscious and pretentious. The emotions in noir hard scrabble movies are always embedded in the context while greed, lust and power play out in the service of hard reality and the rules of the game. That is why the "dames" are treated the way they are and why they betray husbands and lovers for their own advantage. This movie brings the emotionalism to the foreground, (maybe in service to an assumption that the audience they anticipate will want that), and places the action into the context. In doing so they lose the plot of what a noir-ish thriller is about and all we have is the atmosphere without any content. If they wanted to do lesbian porn they should have done so explicitly, as it is, it is neither a good sex film, a good art film nor a good thriller. Like the singing in the movie, it has all the pretense and none of the soul.

I loved this movie. It is very artistic and honest. Ms. Zeig seems to want to express an understanding and deep love between two people - a "no matter what" kind of love. I think she does that with the painter and her muse. Although the singer seems a little new to acting natural at times, the chemistry between the two is evident.