Mati doesn’t like feminine things. She hates the idea of wearing dresses which her mother buys for her. Mati would much prefer to be among her group of friends doing motocross. Mati’s friends are all boys. This isn’t a problem until it is. One of the boys begins harassing women in the guise of flirtation. Another friend, Grabner is in love with Mati and assumes they’ll begin dating. But Mati doesn’t think of him that way. Instead of any of the boys, Mati develops an interest in Carla, who works at the local supermarket. Meanwhile, Mati’s parents have their own issues with sex, sexuality and personal truths.

What L’animale depicts is how romance or at least, behaviours accepted under the banner of romance create a sort of “war” between the genders. The differences between boys and girls until now had been superficial stuff like hobbies. But Mati’s male friends funnel their attraction to women into behaviours which are hostile to women. As such, Mati suddenly finds herself stuck in a series of impossible choices that she’s in. Why? Because she likes bikes more than dresses? Her being “one of the boys” can no longer be a passive occurrence that happened because her friends happen to be boys. Because the boys Mati is friends with begin to outwardly and harmfully inflict their masculinity and sexuality onto women.

Mati is more comfortable with Carla, but this is more due to the isolation. It’s not that Mati finds comfort in female-dominated spaces. Instead, it’s that when it’s just her and Carla, the outside world and its contexts and influences fall away. And Carla does provide Mati with a few positive, more female-coded activities like pretending to be mermaids. Because it’s fine to be not like other girls. But have you considered that girls are pretty cool as well? Whatever Mati’s gender identity is, I don’t think she’s worked it out by the end of the movie. Shes still in a stage where wanted or not, she’s collecting experiences that are masculine or feminine. But what a relief it is in those moments where that categorizing doesn’t matter.

The focus more on gender and gender presentation elevates L’animale up beyond other similar quality queer coming of age films. Themes about gender non-conformity in a society that pits heterosexual men and women against each are fresher to me than another story that isolates sexuality. I still don’t know what Mati’s gender identity is. But I know I can connect with her experiences. Existing as a woman who doesn’t consider men or their attraction tends to end up becoming a sort of gender non-conformity. And let me tell you, some men really hate the idea that you might have an entire existence that doesn’t factor them in at all. And sadly, even as a minority opinion, this behaviour essentially politicizes such actions as not wearing makeup, having “male” hobbies and of course, dating women but not men.

Overall rating: 7.0/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

“Just one of the guys”

Unveiled

Pimp

The Girl King

Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie

The last year before adulthood

Seventeen

Spring

Booksmart

Hearts Beat Loud

Aspiring design student, Abby takes a job as a life guard for a very wealthy and prestigious beach and club. Many of the other young staff are having affairs with the rich housewives and women in the area. However, the rate of staff death and disappearances seems unusually high. Abby too begins an affair with Imani, the wife of one of the members of the board for Abby’s job. As the affair continues, Abby begins to uncover some concerning information as people close to her die and she has her own series of potentially fatal “accidents.”

Blood, Beach, Betrayal is very self-aware. This means the movie comes off insincere most of the time. But this self-awareness also means that the movie has fun with itself and its conventions. The awareness means if you want something so bad it’s good isn’t going to happen. There’s too many winks and nods at the audience. But I largely respect that the film both had fun and puts in the effort to be the best unserious direct-to-streaming thriller it can be.

The film has some fun style to it. More so than any of the Lifetime thrillers I’ve seen. The locations, costumes and color pallet veer almost garish. For me, this style still lands on the side of fun, though never camp because the movie is too self-aware. The story too plays out with fun flourishes and has some good characters. Abby is an above-average protagonist within this subgenre. She’s likeable, funny and the most well-styled thing in the movie.

Blood, Beach, Betrayal is a great choice for a lazy Sunday or whenever else you’re looking for something that’s perhaps low on cinematic nutritional value. It’s breezy, entertaining and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s the strongest Tubi original lesbian movie I’ve seen by a pretty decent margin. There’s a barrier of semi-ironic awareness to the film, but who’s watching a Tubi thriller for sincere artistic merit anyways?

Overall rating: 5.7/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Mystery/thrillers of low nutritional value

Body of Deceit

Vigilo El Camino

The Adored

Russian Doll

Class difference as relationship dynamic

Dirty Work

The Fish Child

Rehabilitation of the Hill

Lizzie

Iris is physically attacked by a stranger one night. While she recovers in hospital, she reflects on her life before this incident. Turns out, it’s far more people than this random stranger who wish Iris harm. Iris lives with her parents. Her father is abusive and unfaithful to Iris’s mother, but her mother refuses to leave. Iris’ father demands she get a job, but the employment office doesn’t have things suitable for Iris’ strong artistic desires. One day, a woman named Alice spontaneously photographs Iris. This leads to a new “friend” for Iris, who often crosses the line into something other than friendship. But this relationships also sours as Alice admits she doesn’t feel romantic interest in Iris. Following both rejection and a physical attack from Alice, Iris begins contemplating suicide.

The framing device of Iris’s random attack adds nothing to the movie. It’s only the first and last scene that deal with this event, and it doesn’t change anything for Iris. Why would it? There’s already so many depictions of harm befalling Iris from people who have much deeper relationships with her. Something about this framing really drives home how much this film counts on unpleasantness as a way to create depth or drama. There is no depth to any of Iris’s abuse. All the unkindness done to Iris feels so persistent and yet, random. Both feelings take away from any sense of depth to this story of an unhappy woman’s life.

The film is also very blunt with its dialogue and cinematic depictions. Subtlety, subtext and nuance are more or less absent in the film. Characters say exactly what they mean and feel and yet somehow, everyone still seems to exist without any insight into other characters. Much of the story and dialogue feels like reluctant connective tissue meant to lead up to another scene of Iris being victimized or otherwise just having a bad time of it.

Iris’ gritty and depressing nature as a film would lend itself well to the unpolished, drab experimentalism of a 90s indie. Iris is too polished and far too digital to get any tone from its visual presentation. I also don’t think any of the intense colour filters for various moments add anything to this film. A black and white shot of Iris crying a single tear? Groundbreaking. While some of the artistic choices show some technical know-how, the feeling they evoke for me is one of artifice and distance. These overt creative choices overlaid on this sad woman’s life make me more aware that I’m watching fiction. Then, I continue to question the motivation of telling such a bleak, depressing story. Is it just a backdrop for this director to do some proof of concept camera work?

I tire of the overly tragic cheap indie. A film is not necessarily better, deeper or smarter because it mires itself and its characters in perpetual tragedy. If anything, Iris is the type of film which feels lazy in how it uses a victimized protagonist. There’s so little depth in this depiction of a woman and the violence done against her. Instead of exploring the extremes of human emotion, human cruelty or human imperfection, Iris feels like it uses its frequent unfortunate occurrence to do nothing more than pad the film’s runtime and trick its audience into thinking that its stylized unpleasantness was somehow profound.

Overall rating: 3.1/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Just one bad thing after another

A Crimson Star

Black Tar Road

Ashley

Meili

Abusive parents

Purple Sea

Adan

The Unwanted

Thelma

Divine leads a traveling show called Lady Divine’s Cavalcade of Perversions. Such perversions include homosexuality, drug use and eating one’s own vomit. Of course, Divine and her crew aren’t here to entertain the squares, really. They rob and often kill their audience. Divine’s lover, Mr. David worries that Divine is going too far. He’s also having an affair with a young woman named Bonnie. When Divine finds out, she intends to kill him. But before she does, she’s raped on the street and has a vision of a child saint that leads her into a church. Here, she’s seduced by Mink, a woman who gives her a “rosary job” while Divine has a lengthy spiritual vision. Now a lesbian, Divine returns home to deal with Mr. David. She may have had a sexual and spiritual awakening, but her streak of violence remains.

Is a film with a drag queen lead a sapphic film? Well, this one is! Plus, Divine has a daughter with a Mr. David. So, either Divine is a cis woman in this universe, or pregnancy works weirder in a John Waters film. Either explanation makes sense to me. All I know is Divine somehow hasn’t had a lesbian experience before receiving Mink’s rosary job. But afterwards, she’s all in on lesbian love. Afterwards, Mink and Divine are insulted and harassed by a policeman who calls them multiple lesbophobic slurs which leads to Divine threatening violence upon them. John Waters movies are exceedingly queer. But they often don’t specifically hone in on lesbianism. Perhaps that’s because the central lesbian story in his earliest feature was so strong, he knew he could never match it.

Waters has such singular success in his ability to steep in bad taste without it feeling truly offensive. Many of his films depicts queer people and outcasts as even more violent and perverse than we would appear in detractors’ wildest nightmares. But as awful as Divine and her ilk get, we still celebrate them. Even the film’s two rape scenes manage to hit a place of bad taste but not offensive. The second in particular has a good chance of being my favourite rape scene in cinema history. That’s a terrible thing to have , but I don’t know what else evens comes close. A giant paper mache lobster comes out of nowhere! Like an absurd punchline to a joke you didn’t realize was being told. Except then, the movie keeps going. It’s such a perfectly out of place, truly random scene that nonetheless adds to the film’s vibe and vision as a whole.

Every John Waters film is a series of filthy miracles. Multiple Maniacs premiered in a church basement. But Waters toured it successfully and it found enough of an audience that in the 2010’s, that shit got a Criterion release. And it deserves such an honour. Waters is an absolute auteur with a specific vision none can truly imitate. He admits that more drugs than thought went into the making of Multiple Maniacs. But Waters’ art and philosophy is so simple yet so radical it’s not like you need a deep explanation to understand any of it. It’s subversive, punk, queer and more than a little anarchist. These things are rare to see in films. It’s a lot easier to live up to anarchist punk ideals when you and your weird friends get high a guerrilla shoot a sideshow of perversions in a local Baltimore park.

As one of his earliest and cheapest films, Multiple Maniacs might be the most unfettered and direct distillation of John Waters. I adore it for that reason. Multiple Maniacs is an early showcase from someone who knew what he was about and what his art was about right from day one. And because his art is about trash, bad taste and subversion, his style comes across even stronger in such an early project, not influenced by any sort of budget or audience considerations. This film was radical in 1970, and still comes across that way in 2026. John Waters is such a singular artist and one of my favourite gay public figures. I’m thrilled that at least one of his films qualifies for this site. As the man himself once said, “get more out of life. See a fucked up movie.”

Overall rating: 7.4/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Films in the Criterion Collection

Fresh Kill

High Art

Working Girls

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Evil queers who love to kill

Maskhead

Swordsman III: The East is Red

Animus

Vampyres

Liu Xian is an introverted teenager. She and her family are part of a community of Korean heritage people living in China. Xian’s mother tells her she is going to live with her dad for at least a year. Xian isn’t thrilled about this change, nor her dad’s attitude. While friendly, Xian’s dad also embarrasses her with nicknames and seems to try and ingratiate himself more with Xian’s peers than Xian herself. The upside is her father’s new stepdaughter, Mingmei. Mingmei is effervescent, outgoing and has beautiful hair. What’s a shy teenage girl to do other than develop a crush on such a girl?

Yeah, A Song Sung Blue is another shy teenage girl lesbian summer romance movie. I’ve seen a lot of these. The main novelty in this— and most of those films— is the specific cultures they come from. The standard plot points are the same, but I’ve never seen a movie with that spew of adjectives I listed that comes from China, let alone the Korean minority within China. These culturally specific elements are what I most enjoyed about A Song Sung Blue. They were new to me. The bulk of the film is fairly universal, at least to shy lesbian teens. While it’s great these themes work regardless of country, I of course, have seen such themes dozens of times by now.

Unfortunately for Liu Xian, she’s in one of those sapphic movies that’s mostly about repression and suppression. Xian’s fairly certain of her own identity as a lesbian before the end of the movie. And there’s little future she can hope for with such an identity. The adults in her life are not only heterosexual, but deeply encourage and expect marriage for Xian. As a minority culture within their country, there’s not a lot of encouragement for anything besides a traditional inter-community romance/marriage/kids future. Xian’s own divorced parents and especially her father model some major heteronormativity in their own lives and expectations for her. Even Xian’s gay awakening isn’t free from heteronormativity. Mingmei is not just boy crazy, but talks frequently of marriage. As such, Xian remains silent through the end of the movie. She watches with silent tears as everyone else celebrates the wedding that further reinforces Xian’s isolation as a queer girl.

Almost always with coming-of-age films I see these days, my main interest is in the cultural specifics. This is very much the case here. So much of Xian’s story is universal in a way that I’ve seen several times over. Universality is good and all, but it does up the likelihood of other people in the world telling this story using these themes. The main elements that set this film apart is that I’ve not seen a lesbian teen movie from mainland China. I didn’t really know anything about the Korean minority culture within that country either. These elements are interesting while being anchored by the ever-present introverted and observant queer teen whose future I worry for.

Overall rating: 6.0/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Introverted teenagers

Show Me Love

Cocoon

Take Me For A Ride

House of Hummingbird

Summer blues

My Summer of Love

Fear of Water

My First Summer

Chestnut

Mercy lives a quiet life with her cat. She attends support groups for her alcoholism, though her sobriety rarely lasts more than a month. Mercy’s mother is both religious and homophobic. She also keeps trying to set Mercy up with god-approved young men. But of course, Mercy isn’t interested in men. She begins tentatively dating a waitress named Jesse. But Mercy struggles with her alcoholism and the trauma and shame that Mercy’s mother doles out. These factors stand in the way of Mercy being a good partner and happy as an individual.

The focus and basic plot points of Mercy’s Girl are pretty good. It’s the execution that I find it lacking. For a film about addiction, religious trauma and familial issues, Mercy’s Girl spends far too much time not depicting those things outright. What does it fill its time with instead? Mercy on transit to her support groups; Mercy playing cards with her cat; Mercy and Jesse having dates where we’re supposed to see their connection but it just comes off as awkward and completely chemistry-free. Mercy plays things pretty close to her chest, including her emotions. It’s true there’s always something going on beneath her quiet surface. However, the film doesn’t often succeed in showing this. Instead, Mercy comes across flat and disaffected as a point of view character.

A major source of Mercy’s issues come from her mother. Problem is, her mother’s only in two scenes in the movie. As such, Mercy’s mother speedruns through awful things a mom could say to their gay child. She just regurgitates classic talking points that are a mixture of anti-gay religious talking points but also just non-specific abuse towards Mercy. As awful as Mercy’s mother comes across in these two scenes, the film doesn’t centre her as a major figure in Mercy’s life. Mercy is an adult, and as such, only sees her mother occasionally. Whatever mistreatment Mercy’s mother did to her growing up isn’t something that gets much mention. As ever, Mercy’s Girl has its character play presumably a lifetime’s worth of mistreatment so close to the chest that it doesn’t come across onscreen.

After she comes out to her mother, Mercy tries to hook up with a man. When Mercy tries to stop the encounter, it turns into a violent rape. Mercy’s Girl is a movie that lives in the present. The years of trauma from Mercy’s childhood aren’t discussed onscreen so instead, here’s a new trauma to react immediately to. But the way Mercy and Jesse argue with each other after the fact also seems to ignore past events. Sure, Mercy frames the event as saying she fucked someone else. But she’s also got visible bruising. Jesse also seems to have no grasp of Mercy’s issues with her mother, the reasons she hadn’t come out sooner and an overly simplistic view of Mercy’s drinking (something not framed as an issue previously). Once again, there’s too much drama and trauma for one scene. Despite this, the the film reverts after this scene. Trauma isn’t looked at directly, and discussed even less. Mercy internalizes all of this as a character before the audience even knows what she’s internalizing.

While the outline of Mercy’s Girl could make for a resonant drama, its execution left me cold. The film underplays everything except for about three scenes in the third act. And it turns out, three scenes isn’t a sufficient amount of time to cover all the things that occur satisfactorily. The way it stands now, Mercy feels like a deeply passive protagonist. The rape scene and the drama it wrought don’t feel remotely “earned.” The film that up until that point was subtle and internal. The rape feels like an excuse to get its internal character to break and introduce an unavoidable conflict into the relationship. Neither reason required violent stranger rape in a bathroom. It unfortunately feels like a writing shortcut rather than a quality depiction of a traumatic sexual assault.

Overall rating: 3.5/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Familial religious trauma

Liberty’s Secret

You Can Live Forever

Thelma

A Sweetest Kiss

Substance abuse and addiction

Let Me Fall

Black Tar Road

High Art

Love Lies Bleeding

Hana and Ayumi meet in a sign language group. They initially frame their closeness as being like sisters. Then, Hana breaks up with her boyfriend. Despite a lack of support and representation, Hana and Ayumi start dating. Following continued lack of support, the girls take a trip to Tokyo. In Tokyo, they encounter a bar occupied with other Deaf LGBTQ* people, all happy to share their stories of difficulty and hope to Hana and Ayumi.

This is a speedrun of a movie and of a topic. Like I said, it’s 63 minutes. And the representation here isn’t Deaf lesbians, it’s Deaf LGBTQ* people. This means we get a non-linear story that becomes populated with flashbacks as other queer characters tell their stories. There’s a necessity for the film to jump right to the most important moments, like first love confession or parents rejecting their queer child in sign language. This brief runtime and focus also means there’s not a lot of opportunity for characters to develop past their traits of being Deaf and queer. I can’t really tell you a trait of Hana or Ayumi’s personalities or lives that doesn’t relate to that.

In terms of presentation, Until Rainbow Dawn borrows heavily from the sort of romance movie you would otherwise see on the film’s host streaming platform, GagaOohLala. It’s all wistful piano music, light colours and soft focus. Oh god, the soft focus. It’s overdone to where the camera just looks greasy more than anything. Everything about the look of the movie is in line with a happy romance. But the film is less romantic and more about Hana and Ayumi’s struggles in life. I don’t find that wistful piano music to be the right choice for the fallout of a scene where Hana’s parents don’t even reject her identity, they full-on refuse to acknowledge it.

Until Rainbow Dawn is a quick, watchable film based out of a respectable desire for intersectionality and representation. The film has heart and focus. Though brief and hyperfocused as it is, this is all the movie is. In depicting multiple stories of Deaf queer people, it becomes an entry-level grab bag of stories relating to this community. I also wish they’d clean that dang camera lens.

Overall rating: 5.6/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Deaf and disabled sapphics

Concerto for Abigail

T11 Incomplete

Margarita With A Straw

Cloudburst

Films from Japan

Safe Word

Shady

Harmony

Zero Woman: Dangerous Game

Twinkie and her best friend, Egghead are the kind of teens who take on semi-pejorative nicknames as some sort of ironic reclamation. Twinkie calls herself that because of her experience as an Asian-American, raised by white parents. Said white parents are also pretty uptight and conservative. Twinkie isn’t out to her parents, nor Egghead. But after he kisses her, Twinkie’s put in a position where she has to come out to both him and her parents. While those in her real life are still processing, Twinkie finds support in an online friend, BD. BD is a cool, queer content creator and DJ. She invites Twinkie to a lesbian rave 500 miles away. Enlisting Egghead as driver, the two head to Texas, though Twinkie is still concealing the true reason for their excursion from Egghead.

I must be getting old because the amount of energy within the movie straight exhausted me. Good lord, these teens got up to a lot of shit in under 90 minutes. Even when I was 17, I wasn’t doing all of that. Which is probably why I’m not a protagonist in a charming, indie coming-of-age comedy. This film manages to cover so much ground in terms of both episodic misadventures and character development. Twinkie explores queerness, coming of age, being Chinese but raised by white parents and a 500 mile road trip full of misadventures. On top of this, Twinkie wants to pursue animation as a career. So, the film itself has lots of animated elements overlaid on the screen. The frantic, vibrant tone of the movie matches its protagonist and this period of her life excellently.

I’m also fond of a narrative about friendship over romance, especially for teenage character. Egghead & Twinkie has both. Twinkie’s real-life love interest, Jess is charming. She and Twinkie are able to compare, contrast and discuss their experiences of being Asian-American. But Egghead is Twinkie’s most important person. He’s not perfect; he’s a 17-year old boy. But Twinkie isn’t perfect either. This friendship has endured years and hopefully, will continue to endure. When the chips are down, Egghead always comes in clutch, ultimately doing the right thing and being the person close enough to Twinkie to actually support her emotionally. The film also manages to celebrate this friendship and portray Egghead as a Chad ally best friend without overly celebrating him being a decent person or overly emphasizing his heterosexual white struggles over Twinkie’s story.

Egghead & Twinkie is what I like to see in a debut film from a young director. There’s so much hunger, passion, enthusiasm and energy in every frame and every choice the movie makes. This movie is the opposite of lazy. And in addition to trying really hard and caring a lot, it turned out good as a finished product! I liked the characters, the journeys and lots of the jokes within Egghead & Twinkie. This is a funny, charming coming-of-age movie that will exhaust you second-hand if you are above 25 years of age.

Overall rating: 7.3/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Male best friends with a crush

First Girl I Loved

Lez Bomb

About Cherry

The Book Of Gabrielle

The drama and agony of being 17

Seventeen

Air

Solace

Blush

Estelle dreams of investigating a beach house nearby to her and seeing an eye watching her through a crack in the wall. In her waking life, Estelle is a long haul flight pilot. She and her husband, a doctor, are planning for kids. But kids don’t fit nicely into Estelle’s regimented life. One day, she meets a woman from her past at the airport. Ana is a free-spirited photographer whose current project is capturing people at the moment of orgasm. And wouldn’t you know it, she’s staying in the very house Estelle dreamed about. Obviously, these two women have an affair. But when things get too intense, Estelle pulls back. Following this, Ana seems to go missing. But is something actually wrong? Or is Estelle breaking down over a simple ghosting by her affair partner?

Visions offers low personal stakes because I don’t personally care about the characters. Estelle’s personality is primarily a chilly repression with a side of sapphic lust. Sure, she eventually starts to break down, but even then, it’s just a regularly in control woman now out of control. Her character is too dull to even break down in an interesting manner. Visions adds stakes due to Estelle’s job. Her affair and its after effects don’t just impact her husband and those close to her. Because Estelle is a fucking pilot. The only tense moments the film has are when Estelle loses time or hallucinates only to find herself actually in the cockpit of the plane. But these external stakes via the safety of unknown passengers don’t remotely make up for the film’s personal stakes not being interesting enough.

Unsurprisingly, eye imagery is a big thing in Visions. Most of it feels disconnected and try-hard. This story doesn’t warrant shots of a smoothie, a jet propeller and a jellyfish somewhat resembling an eye. Overall, Visions’ use of witnessed events and point of view doesn’t feel strong. The film is primarily about Estelle’s perception of events; what she witnessed, what she didn’t and what she remembers. But when it’s time to reveal the truth, the film does this by having Estelle look at her own reflection and flashing back. Despite all of her uncertainty regarding her own perception and memory, this scene is detailed and true. Because that’s the easiest way to explain what happened to the audience, not because it’s the best way to use point of view and memory in a movie that specifically tries to problematize those for its lead character. Whatever. Show me another close-up of something that isn’t an eye with some intense music. That’ll help.

While there’s some money and competence in Visions, it’s at best unremarkable. The bones of this story are ones you’ve probably seen before, in other affair-themed thrillers. And the specifics of Visions don’t really elevate it. Its characters and their relationships to one another aren’t interesting or toxic enough to hang a two hour thriller off of.

Overall rating: 5.5/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

Psychological and mind-bending thrillers

One Four Three

Through the Glass Darkly

Alone With You

Passion

Lesbian affair thrillers

Heatwave

Wild Side

Bound

A Wife Alone

AJ and Diane are a married lesbian couple whose house seems to be a bit of a community hub for other lesbians. The outlier to this is Keisha, who lives in the house but dates men. Keisha isn’t fully straight. She and Zoi hooked up back in the day. When her house undergoes repairs, Zoi moves in to AJ’s house. Problem is, with only two bedrooms, Zoi’s sharing with Keisha. And there’s only one bed! Keisha begins dating a male doctor named Greg. But in such close quarters to Zoi, old feelings and habits reemerge.

Thing is, Keisha’s deeply unpleasant and antagonistic to Zoi, who’s carried a torch for her for years. Lacking other character traits, I also assume Zoi’s interest in Keisha is largely based around the concept of “turning” a straight woman. It’s hard to root for this relationship or its characters when the love triangle skews between boring and concerning. I’d rather see this story from AJ and Diane’s point of view, watching all this dyke drama from a distance. Most of all, I’d love to have more focus on a small character named Kiki. Kiki is the oldest lesbian in the movie. She’s got attitude and poise. Kiki performs a piece of slam poetry at Keisha’s birthday about wanting to fuck everyone, with fingering turning into fisting. Yeah, I don’t care about who proposes to Keisha after that. Kiki for main character, please!

Aside from Kiki, the most memorable part of the film is the Chicago Lesbian Police. In the first act, two women show up identifying themselves as the lesbian police and claiming to be here because of a disturbance. They find Keisha and Zoi fighting, with Keisha currently choking Zoi. The lesbian police do what police do best. They opt to threaten Zoi with arrest and jail and then simply leave. Nobody else talks to them, nor do they have any dialogue suggesting this was all a joke. With a lack of denial and the abuse of power against the darker skinned and masc Zoi, I can only conclude that the Girls Like Us universe actually has lesbian police. I hope they come back in part 2. More than any actual character, I’d really like to se the return and the explanation of the lesbian police.

Girls Like Us is obviously, deeply cheap. They do the best they can for the most part, but things like audio quality are a shade below average. The most annoying thing is that any branded products have been blurred out. I understand the need for this. However, this is something that could’ve been minimized before shooting started. How about a character simply wears a different shirt so we don’t have to blur out the prominent Coca Cola logo on said shirt? Minimizing and concealing trademarked brands is something that should’ve come up in pre-production or perhaps, addressed on the day of shooting. It doesn’t look like this happened. Instead, all these blurs added additional time into post-production for a finished product that’s both distracting and usually not even suitably blurred. If anyone cared enough about this movie, they might be in trouble.

While being mercifully short, the pacing in Girls Like Us is unsatisfactory. Perhaps that’s because there’s a sequel. Either way, the climax of the film comes minutes before the end. It leaves most of the drama unresolved. Honestly, I don’t think the drama is strong enough to entice people to watch part two. Am I going to? Yeah, because watching lesbian movies is what I do. But I’m not normal so, my experience is not universal. There are both better and more entertaining pieces of low budget black lesbian representation. Girls Like Us is neither ingenious nor insane enough to transcend its small budget and limited audience appeal.

Overall rating: 2.8/10

Other WLW films in similar genres

African American movies

The Calling

Thick

Pimp

Turned Out

Women who are bisexual and also cheat

Water in a Broken Glass

Body of Deceit

Summer Lover

The Gymnast

Seon-woo and Hee-seo initially see their purchase of an apartment together as a positive thing. Why wouldn’t they? However, Seon-woo loses her job due to a financial recession. On top of that, she breaks her leg. This leave Hee-seo as the sole breadwinner. While Hee-seo works, Seon-woo tries to keep her sanity and feelings of usefulness around the apartment. Seon-woo begins to fixate on a smell that emanates into their apartment. Unable to fix the problem within her own space, Seon-woo brings it up with apartment management and other residents. But as she continues to draw attention to this problem, it also draws attention to herself and Hee-seo. Not all of the residents are happy to see two women living together who sometimes like to kiss.

The residents turning against Seon-woo and Hee-seo is one of the best depictions of online toxicity I’ve seen. The turning point comes rather suddenly in an apartment group chat. In the apartment group chat, a resident asks if Seon-woo is the residents they’ve seen doing homosexual acts. What follows is a stream of comments, ready to express their disgust or feelings of unsafety living around gays. And once that door opens more, increasingly horrible comments pile on. When Seon-woo comments, asking everyone to stop being hateful, it’s already too late. They’re offended and angry that Seon-woo would dare accuse them of being bigots. Really, isn’t Seon-woo the real problem? Calling them hateful like that? This scene happens over a small amount of minutes in an online space. Yet by the end, Seon-woo and Hee-seo are clearly no longer safe and secure in their home.

Lucky, Apartment doesn’t have all the conflict come from external sources. Hee-seo and Seon-woo’s relationship begins to breakdown far before that fateful group chat. Lucky, Apartment had a great depiction of how much knowing and loving someone allows you to hurt them. There’s an argument the two have where both say awful things to each other. Knowing one another so well allows for the most pointed and devastating of comments that only a long term lover could make. There is no escape for either of them. They’re externally discriminated against. And partially because of that stress, their personal relationship becomes another vector for harm and another situation to want an escape from.

Lucky, Apartment is a slow burn until the third act. It keeps to a realist depiction and aesthetic as these lesbians’ apartment stops being so lucky. The third act payoff is more than worth the build-up. It’s not like the movie suddenly has a major action set piece or anything. Instead, the emotional devastation from key scenes works well as it’s been built up by the previous acts. This is obviously a feel-bad movie. But it’s an excellently calibrated one. Lucky, Apartment tells a character-driven story that allows for a blatant plea for LGBTQ* legal protection, while still treating is central queer characters as larger people with additional issues.

Overall rating: 6.8/10

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Who am I kidding? Whistle is fun! Is the premise flimsy at best? Yeah! Does it make any sense when you ask even rudimentary questions? Not really! Are the characters distinct and memorable? Hardly! Everything about Whistle is what I wanted and expected from it. This story about a bunch of teenagers cursed by a Mayan death whistle they find in a locker is super fun. If you’re looking for scares, there’s lots better stuff than the cursed whistle movie. But I would assume most people watching this aren’t exactly expecting this to be traumatic nightmare fuel rather than an entertaining evening out at the movies.

Plus, it means that ancient Mayan death whistles are lesbian culture! Whistle absolutely benefits from the fact that I’m kinder on LGBTQ* mainstream cinema and representation. I’m thrilled to add a silly teenage horror movie into sapphic cinema canon. These films always have a strategically diverse group of leads with shallow and interchangeable personalities anyways. Why not have the unremarkable final girl be a lesbian? As proven by Whistle’s staggering mediocirty, it really does change nothing. Well, nothing except for weird lesbians like me might call this dumb movie positive representation or progress or something. What can I say? The evil whistle is gay culture now.

Is Whistle actually any good? Not really. It’s definitely not scary, unless you’re scared of the specter of your older self playing a game of “got your lungs” and causing you to go bald. There’s also a great death scene where a character does a sick overhead kick and just explodes into viscera. The film is just so much fun! I love a good generic teen horror movie that’s probably meant to be watched at a sleepover. There’s a curse, a mystery and at least one dumb loophole to survive said curse. This movie has it all. It even works as an adult, because now I can buy alcohol for such a viewing. Still, the decision not to have a creepy child perform Flo Rida’s Whistle over the ending is an absurd missed opportunity. Here’s praying for a sequel to rectify this enormous mistake.

Overall rating: 5.7/10

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Night Fangs

The Blood Spattered Bride

Marina’s rich father dies, leaving little of his wealth behind. His secretary, Eli leaves following his death and lack of paycheque. This devastates Marina. Paris is a nice man very much in love with Marina. She tries to love him back and have sex with him. But she can’t bring herself to. Instead, she tells Paris about her sapphic history with Eli. The two women began sleeping together quickly. But as Marina’s father put pressure on her to marry Paris, Eli became possessive and abusive. With Eli gone and a loving man right there, Marina still finds herself torn between the safety of Paris and her overwhelming desire for Eli.

Like I said, Lesbos Honey is a softcore film. It’s got a simple plot that lends itself to numerous simulated sex scenes. These scenes have a surprisingly varied soundtrack including what seems to be theme song for Eli and Marina. Some of the music works, some doesn’t, some is so stereotypically funky 70s porn music that I delighted in it. Obviously in 2026, I’m not going to be shocked by simulated sex. These scenes take up the majority of the movie and are the dullest thing about the movie. It’s just some naked people always making sure to leave room between their pelvises because again, it’s softcore. Lengthy as the scenes are, it just looks like an exercise in trying and failing to conceal the lack of sex actually happening. I’ve never seen sex where both parties keep opting to be so perpendicular to one another.

I’ll give props that the film isn’t as homophobic as it could be. Until it engages in the homophobic trope, at least. Marina’s attraction to Eli is presented as a very natural thing. Even Paris validates it, telling Marina she clearly loved Eli. It’s just that there’s no place for them in society. The film also nearly ends happily. After one letter from Eli, Marina makes her choice and chooses Eli, leaving safety behind. Also overjoyed, Eli brings flowers to meet her at the train station. Of course, in the last minute of the film, a car runs Eli down and she dies. Turns out, Confessions of a Lesbos Honey wasn’t going to exceed convention that much. The fatal allergy of lesbians to being hit by cars is one of the most enduring tropes I’ve seen.

Confessions of a Lesbos Honey could’ve been a lot worse than it was. But that still doesn’t make it any good. It’s a very unremarkable movie. The most notable thing is really that it could’ve been more homophobic than it turned out to be. And I’m not too willing to celebrate that when its level of homophobia still isn’t zero. It’s fine for what it is, but what it is has little value in 2026 when anyone can see naked bodies set to funky music anytime they want. The film is only worth anything as a single data point of many when analyzing what sapphic representation looked like in either film or porn of the 1970s. I think this is pretty interesting, but I imagine few other people need such an unremarkable data point.

Overall rating: 3.6/10

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Male-female-female love triangles

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Does nudity count as a personality trait?

Cheeky!

Blue Rita

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Bethany has visited Warsaw, Poland five times in her life. During her first visit as a teenager, the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull erupts, causing Bethany to spend a month there. During this time, she meets Nel. While Bethany doesn’t keep in contact with Nel day to day, the two continue to meet up when Bethany visits Warsaw. These visits all happen to coincide with a volcanic eruption. Taking this as a sort of sign, these visits also involve Nel and Bethany letting lose and disregarding consequences like jobs and partners to party it up and exist in synchronicity only to each other. However, this time Bethany’s brought her boyfriend, Rob with her to visit Warsaw. Rob’s planning to propose. But Bethany’s uncertain and seeks out Nel, saying that with Rob, there are no eruptions like there are when she’s with Nel.

Disappointingly, Bethany and Nel never fully cross the line into sapphic activity in Erupcja, at least onscreen. Their relationship makes most sense if you view it through a queer lens, especially because Bethany compares her relationship to Rob with her relationship with Nel. But you never actually see Charli XCX kiss a woman onscreen. Even their offscreen antics are primarily partying and apparently, reciting poetry to each other as the sun rises. Again, the intensity of all of this probably has sapphic tones to it all. But they could also just be close and messy friends. Nel is confirmed queer at least. She has an ex named Ula who she blows of for Bethany much the same way Bethany blows off Rob.

I love the directing in Erupcja. It’s very deliberately artsy and evokes a lot of European art film traditions like French New Wave. I also appreciate Ohs’ focus on location first and depicting that location as an important part of the story. This is a fun lens to see Warsaw through. The film is at its best the more experimental and artistic the filmmaking and camerawork is. I loved the close-ups, the smalls details and the coloured insert shots of volcanos erupting. I liked the film less when it defaulted back to handheld shaky cam of people talking.

Realistically, this is mostly a people talking kind of film. Short as it is, I still don’t think Erupcja fully filled out its screen time. Perhaps due to limitations of what they could shoot, whole chunks of Bethany and Nel’s time together is off-screen and then summarized by a voiceover. This doesn’t help to sell this allegedly intense connection the two characters have. I like where the film ends up, particularly with Rob meeting Nel as orchestrated by an artist friend named Claude. But given where the film ends, it feels like we took too long to get to the ending. While Bethany and Nel have all this history, much of that and its importance is also a late in the film reveal.

Erupcja has a fun, creative and fresh feel to it despite its characters being in their 30s. There’s still a messiness to their characters and the filmmaking follows in that example. The collaborative approach to this project is interesting, but as a very script-first kind of person, I did feel it lacked in that department. This is a movie that is going to find an audience that adores it and likely, as many people who “didn’t get it.” I find myself somewhere in the middle. Peter Ohs’ style of filmmaking worked for me sometimes and didn’t at other times. But I do appreciate that he had a specific voice as an artist and that part of that specific voice is heavy collaboration.

Overall rating: 5.9/10

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Singers turned actresses

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Eva, Nico, Camille and her girlfriend, Ariane live and work together in Barcelona. Of the four, all are gay but only Camille is out to her parents. Partially pressured by Camille’s mother, the group decide to come out to their respective parents. Camille’s mother hosts them all, and the group’s straight friend, Lili, also decides to tag along with her parents. Lili just wants to see what her parents’ response is. Obviously, the respective parents have a mixture of reactions ranging from suggestions of having homosexuality removed like a tumour, to a parent’s own revelation of homosexuality.

My god, did everyone talk fast in this movie. I cannot say the film lacked for energy. That’s one of my favourite things about the film. There’s no downtime. Everyone onscreen is making the most of each second. The effort and energy is high throughout the film. Plus, that energy transfers through to a high amount of jokes. Not all of them land. But rapid-fire as the movie is, if one doesn’t land, we just move right along to the next. The film does well in balancing numerous characters and storylines. None of them are exactly in depth, because it’s not the movie for such things. Instead, there’s a balanced cast of fun characters and different points of view.

The downside with the energy is that it’s at times, hard to keep up. The film’s setup is a bit overwhelming, with numerous leads each with two parents. Or maybe I’m just cranky because of how long it took me to determine which one is Ariane and which one is Camille. As all the plot lines come to a head in the third act, things get a little hard to follow. Plus, this is the film at its choppiest. It cuts so quickly between characters and storylines that it actually impedes the pacing rather than helping it along. Too many things are meant to occur all at once, and the film seems to struggle to keep on top of all of it at points.

Still, Why Not Me? is overall a fun, high energy gay comedy. Its premise means it covers a lot of ground in the coming out genre, with such numerous and ridiculous parental responses. The film has several moments that made me laugh out loud and has a joyous energy overall. This is a good alternative to the more dour coming out narratives that also manages to provide a whole new nightmare. Imagine if your coming out directly lead to you and a friend’s parents having gay sex that very night! That’s a new response I hadn’t considered, and one worth making a comedy about.

Overall rating: 6.7/10

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Girl/Girl Scene - The Movie

Emily and Amy were friends in school. But after becoming adults and Emily moving to New York, they haven’t really talked in ten years. When Emily moves back to town, they rekindle their friendship like no time has passed. Emily begins a job with Amy’s father while she and her boyfriend move into a house together. But of course, this is a queer film. Amy’s a lesbian. Most people know, but she hasn’t come out to Emily. As their friendship surprises even themselves with its closeness, Amy struggles to bring this factor up to Emily.

As a general rule, My Little Friend doesn’t offer up enough reasons to care about these characters. Having seen a few films from the people involved in this one, they like small, character-driven stories. They also seem to have limited financial and practical means. I’m trying to respect that. But even for a realistic, character-focused movie, there’s not enough here. The characters skew too real; their problems too small and their dialogue not engaging. By the end of the film, I didn’t care enough about any of these people to become engaged in their small-scale relationship drama.

There is one thread I like, that perhaps could’ve been focused on further. The film’s realism causes most character interactions to become awkward. But when Emily and Amy interact, there’s a distinct lack of care that things are awkward. The women are enthusiastic and affectionate with one another without any second thoughts. Without words or discussion, they’re extremely comfortable around each other. But once possible queerness in their relationship is broached, the second thoughts begin. Awkwardness comes to their previously thoughtlessly joyful friendship. This previously effortless friendship struggles to survive a direct conversation and emotions that interfere with this illusion of effortless intimacy.

My Little Friend is a small, personal little indie film that presents characters with such small lives and problems that it’s difficult to care about them. This is very much a film where the realism tips over into me thinking why would I watch this when I could just go be awkward and boring in real life? There’s just not enough going on in any level of this film to warrant a stronger reaction on any level.

Overall rating: 2.3/10

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Vera’s mother works in real estate and uses Vera as a free assistant for her work. This is what allows Vera to acquire a key to a perpetually unsold apartment. Vera rents this apartment out to other young people looking for a place to have sex. She gets something besides money from this arrangement. Vera secretly watches the couples hook up, exploring her own developing sexuality using these unknowing young couples as proxy. This eventually leads Vera to engage with a young couple directly. However, Vera is not the only key holder to this apartment. And Vera’s not able to keep her scheme secret from the adults in her life forever.

While young people exploring sexuality is a common and natural thing, films rarely portray it this way. Young people’s fictional sexual exploration usually include negative consequences like rape, pregnancy or STIs. All of which are also possible in real life, of course. But as a film, Vera opts to depict this sexual exploration of something neutral to positive. As such, it’s not a film where such consequences happen. The closest the film gets is when Vera unfortunately discovers the adults in her life are doing the same thing as her (having secret apartment sex). This makes it unexpected as a film. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and someone to get the fatal STI of teenage sexuality consequences. Instead, Vera and the other young people are given the chance to explore themselves and each other in a pretty safe environment.

While I think it’s a good thing the film leaned away from these negative and often exaggerated consequences of teen sexuality, I’m always a person asking for more conflict. Especially as the film seems to set up a few that don’t pay off. Vera locks her clients in the secret sex apartment so they can only leave when she comes back to get them. A couple asks what happens if something goes wrong? Nothing ends up going wrong in reality. In some ways, it feels like Vera’s development is actually stymied by the fact that she’s consequence-free for most of the film. She rarely has to make choices or reflect on her behaviours because everything turns out fine for her. But perhaps this is also perfect for a character who discovers herself to be a bisexual voyeur.

As a final note, the version of this film I saw on Tubi was dubbed. Is this something we’re doing again? Dubbing foreign films, particularly those about sex which might play better in a foreign market only if that market doesn’t have to read? Are we returning to the exploitation era of English dubbing of foreign sex movies? That’s sort of disappointing. Vera and the Pleasure of Others is a very universal film. Teenage sexuality and ugly, over-priced apartments are common themes the world over. Realistically, more English-speaking people watched this movie, giving it and Tubi more revenue and the film a wider audience. But they didn’t offer the choice to engage with the film in this way. A subtitled version with the original Spanish language isn’t available on Tubi. And I’m pretentious and love reading so I would’ve liked that option.

Vera and the Pleasure of Others is a coming-of-age film that normalizes and even celebrates youthful exploration and experimentation. Hopefully, as she continues to grow, Vera will also learn a bit more about consent when it comes to her voyeurism. The film’s non-judgemental attitude to the sex lives of teenagers is a welcome change. Though a bit of judgement makes the world go round and the story develop, perhaps. Even without major consequences, Vera as both film and character could stand a bit more development and insight than what’s provided in the film.

Overall rating: 5.9/10

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Darcy organizes a reunion for a group of college friends at her summer house. Darcy is currently going through a divorce with an ex husband looking for custody. Julien and Julie Anne show up with news that Julie Anne is pregnant. Lucy is in tow too, coping with her breakup via heavy substance use. Lauren introduces the group to her younger girlfriend, Phoebe. All of the women are waiting for the following day when their final member, Dax arrives. Dax is a successful musician. She’s also slept with every other member of the group. Her arrival really kicks off a web of conflict between the other women. Not that doing so was Dax’s intention. Dax is there almost exclusively for Darcy.

I do admire the film’s depiction of a messy web of old sapphic friends. The age, gender, sexuality and individual characters here make for a great stew of numerous interpersonal conflicts. The characters all feel fairly real, but the dynamic is what seems the most realistic to me. This messy web of relationship drama isn’t uncommon among groups of queer friends. The fact that these women are old enough to have known each other for decades also helps make this a real conflict pressure cooker. Again, it’s just a shame that I didn’t like any of these characters enough to care about any of their drama.

Likewise, so much of the comedic moments in the film don’t work because I dislike the characters. A lot of the time, they’re saying things to intentionally be funny. But because I’m coming at such jokes from a place of disliking the teller, they usually fail to make me laugh. Plus, not all of the jokes work. Lakeview is a movie for and about a very specific subgroup of people. I am damn close to belonging to that group. But even I feel like an outsider because this movie so failed to speak to me on both a profound or lighter, humorous level.

Perhaps I would like this movie more if I shared its taste in music. Lakeview opens with a quote from Lucy Daucus. Three of the characters are named Lucy, Phoebe and Julien, the performers in the sapphic supergroup, boygenius. There’s also a moment in the film where two characters discuss the merits of Taylor Swift leaving gay coded hints in her lyrics. That last one really put me off the movie, honestly. With the heavy references to boygenius, I started interpreting this movie as a longform music video of a boygenius song. And it turns out, I like songs and music videos better when they’re not an hour 40 minutes long. There’s a real indulgence to all of Lakeview from the point of its creator. And because I prefer to indulge in different, often opposite things, the indulgence displayed in Lakeview just put me off.

I often asked during the film if the women in Lakeview actually liked each other. I didn’t need to ask whether I personally liked them, because the answer is no. This meant that Lakeview was a chore to get through for me. I simply didn’t like spending time with any of these characters. Their drama seemed juvenile and I didn’t care much about the web of past relationships which is largely off-screen. The jokes really didn’t speak to me and the film struggled to mix its dramatic and comedic ambitions. Simply put, this movie was not for me.

Overall rating. 4.1/10

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Very much in love, Fleur and Julian plan to marry. A discussion with friends about wedding locations highlights how few places they can marry as a gay couple in 2017. So, the two decide to make a project of it. Less protest and more celebration of the countries that allow it, Fleur and Julian plan to marry in each of the 22 countries in the world that currently allow gay marriage. They document their journey, and link up with local organizations and journalists to spread the word of their mission. However, after their wedding in France, Julian is rushed to the hospital. Very sick, it no longer becomes possible for Fleur and Julian to complete their project.

Fleur and Julian’s project was already worthy of documentation and a fictional adaption when their plan was to marry all over the world. Julian’s illness doesn’t change that worthiness one way or other other. But it does change the tone of this story. I’m sure the real-life couple initially thought of the sharing of this project as something to inform and to celebrate countries with equality while also pointing out the work that needs to be done to achieve global equality. Tragically, that’s not the way their story ends. As such, Julian as a film touches on those themes, but has a separate reason for existence. Julian is about the real-life Fleur sharing her wife, their love and their story with a wider audience. What should have been a project bigger than themselves instead becomes a personal tale of hardship and loss that prevents them from achieving their goals.

Given the public nature of their journey, Fleur and Julian’s marriage project is fairly well-documented. The film makes the wise choice to often skip over these big moments, like the public weddings and instead focuses on Fleur and Julian in their private moments. It isn’t about the big gesture of doing marriage vows in front of an audience 22 times. It’s about the small moments of a life and love; of Julian running breathless last minute rehearsal of those vows half-dressed. Julian the film operates as a memorial and celebration of Julian the real woman. And like anyone, the truth of who Julian is only exists in those small, personal moments. It feels heartbreakingly intimate to see the film from this much more personal perspective.

The main issue I have with the film is its non-linear story structure. The film offers years and dates sometimes, but not always. This means determining the film’s timeline and “present” can be difficult. It’s also difficult to grasp the scope of their project and its level of completion. What we get from that part of their life is mostly montage. The third act switches to mostly linear, so the film can linger with Fleur and Julian in Julian’s final days. As the film had spent more time jumping between times and settings, it caused this section of the film to feel lengthier than it was and less dynamic than the rest of the film.

Julian is a film about two women who wanted to share their love and their status as gay women in a world with differing levels of acceptance. Tragically, it becomes a document of a much more private kind of love. It’s an incredibly tragic story, that absolutely deserves to be told in numerous forms. The real-life Fleur released a memoir and has toured giving talks about their projects. I applaud Fleur for her bravery and generosity in sharing such personal moments with an audience. And I applaud director Cato Kusters in her choice to turn this story into a feature film, continuing to share the story, the love and the memory of Julian.

Overall rating: 7.0/10

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Waiting for the Moon depicts a handful of summer days in the lives of Gertrude Stein and Alice Tolkas. Their days are slow, not quite idyllic, but undramatic. While Gertrude has non-specific health issues she wishes to hide from Alice, Alice keeps the structure in their lives. Beyond being Gertrude’s life partner, Alice is Gertrude’s assistant in all matters. Copy work, proofreading and keeping house all fall to Alice. The two discuss how in their relationship, Gertrude is a genius, which requires Alice as her partner to take the role of a saint. While the two occasionally interact with other writers and intellectuals, much of the film is the women in their private hours, isolated in the dynamic they’ve established.

I love the focus of this film. Waiting for the Moon centers Alice Toklas, a woman who was not just a background character in the lives of other great writers, but essentially in her own life. I think it’s a beautiful piece of inspiration to discover this woman who was an often unspoken and retiring figure in Gertrude Stein’s life and work and to bring her into main focus. Within the film, Alice is aware of her role and it’s something she struggles with. This is a great piece of character awareness that essentially justifies the movie itself. At least the way the film depicts Alice, I think she would be very touched to see that there is a story where she’s so central.

Because the movie focuses Alice, it also goes at her speed. And Alice isn’t exactly a daredevil. I really like Linda Hunt’s performance as Alice. It’s appropriately stern and intelligent. But it continues to be true that Alice’s eyes aren’t the most interesting way to view the world. And by contrast, Alice’s steadfast nature makes the scenes involving Hemingway or Picasso look trite and overdone. There’s nuance and depth in the film’s depiction of its two leads. But with such a contrast of character and less time allowed to them, Hemingway in particular comes off like an exaggerated impression of the man.

Waiting for the Moon is slow and unavoidably pretentious. On top of not doing much, these women are intelligent and notable intellectual figures. Their dialogue shows that. These are the moments I like the film best. This prickly but committed domesticity between Alice and Gertrude is a sweet depiction of sapphic love between two older, thoughtful women. However, as a biopic it doesn’t feel informative beyond its focus on Alice Toklas. And as a movie overall, it’s not exactly a breathless and breakneck blockbuster. It’s perhaps too gentle as both a movie and especially as an exploration into the real lives and history of any character in the movie who isn’t Alice Toklas.

Overall rating: 6.0/10

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