Rose Troche's debut feature acclaimed at both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals is a warm, quirky look at all things lesbian. Max (Turner), a beautiful young writer has everything except maturity and a date. Luckily, her lesbian friends have a plan. They seem to think, for reasons never satisfactorily explained, that she is suited to Ely (Brodie), an older, hippy-haired sister of the woodlands type with two cats, a conveniently out-of-town girlfriend and a fear of social interaction.
The film is much more than a gay Blind Date, however, since Troche's intention is to make an all-out Lesbian Sisters Unite dykerama. What we get, therefore, along with the cute and halting progress of Ely and Max, is a revealing study of the lesbian lifestyle and all its inherent prejudices and dilemmas, as the group of women are filmed in rough-cut black-and-white home movie style intimacy debating such important issues as: can you still be a lesbian after sleeping with a man, and what to call one's vagina without being PC or male in attitude.
The self-conscious acting is neutralised by the seductive and ultimately satisfying script as Max grows up and learns to see beyond the shallow fashion requirements which stand in the way of a good relationship. By turns charming and tedious, this proves that no matter what your sexual preference may be, we are all faced with the same problems in life.
