Review of Lost and Delirious (2001) by Kevin M — 26 Jul 2007

The original book on which this film is based was supposedly based on a true story about a lesbian relationship between two students at a private school that ends up with one of them killing the school's gardener as part of a misguided effort to win over the girl who dumped her and her family. This film ends differently, because killing that bloke out of Dances with Wolves probably wouldn't go down very well, but it is not a particularly happier finale.

There are some things to like here: Perabo is quite good if you think her career so far has consisted of Coyote Ugly (where she looked kind of hot), Rocky and Bulwinkle (I guess everyone needs to make a living), Slap Her She's French (she isn't French, sorry if that ruins the ending for you), Cheaper by the Dozen and Cheaper by the Dozen (then again, does anyone need money this badly? Imagine, it's your life's dream to act and you slog your guts out at drama school, and even if you do better than all your peers at Walt Disney World playing Goofy, even if you step above the Special K commercials and the muggers in The Bill (or Law & Order) and you make it, you live the dream, you get the holy grail, a Hollywood career, you still have to be in Cheaper by the Dozen 2. But then, does Steve Martin care? Does that guy from all the American Pie films cry himself to sleep at night in his mansion that he isn't playing Richard III?).

Where was I? Oh yes, Perabo can kind of act. Even Mischa Barton, who anyone will watch The O.C. will know, comes across as someone with no discernable talent whatsoever other than managing to exist without eating, kind of does some acting here. The cinematography is pretty. I like the bird of prey, even if we do get bored with being hit over the head its symbolism every 26 seconds.

What are the bad things? The script. The scriptwriter loses faith in themselves at some point and begins to quote Shakespeare at length, I suppose because this seems deep and literary rather than lazy. We are also supposed to believe, in the interests of plot device, a number of things: that two girls in a lesbian relationship they want to keep secret dance and kiss on the school roof; that when a girl a few years younger than them moves into their dormroom (that they had previously had to themselves) they will be spectacularly unbothered and continue getting it on with each other every night, even though their new roommate is 13 or 14 and you know, that lesbian thing is SUPPOSED to be a secret; that they would then leave the bedroom door unlocked when they are at it, just so one of their sisters can walk in on them at it; that girls at a boarding school in the 20th century (I think the film is set in the 90s despite its 2001 release) would be uniformly shocked by the hint of lesbianism, they'd never heard of such a thing, and only one person would be nice to the school lesbian at all, ever again; that in a North American private school in the 90s a member of staff would pretty much ignore a student basically saying that they were going to top themselves, without even ever thinking of the word "lawsuit"; and that lesbians challenge their exes' new boyfriends to duels in the woods, stab them in the leg with a fencing foil and then kill themselves because their girlfriends dump them for a guy (they don't. They go to the pub and get drunk, like everyone else).

What else? Well, the other change from the original novel possibly shows some of where this film is going: the girls in the lesbian relationship have had their age revised upwards a few years, whilst the third main character stays the same age. This means that we get to see the girls get it on in a way we could not if they were still supposed to be (and looked) 14. Mouse Bradford (the aforementioned Barton) is supposed to be our narrator, but the film gives this up because it soon turns into Perabo's character going off on one in scenes without her and trying to be a man (though this amounts to little more than wearing a man's suit - she doesn't even cut her hair properly - but then cutting her hair off would be too dramatic a statement and she wouldn't look so pretty!!).

It's one of those films that thinks it is really clever and daring because it has some naughty language and some girls kissing and young Hollywood actresses topless in it, in a supposedly arty way. Really it's just another lesbian love story where the lesbian love doesn't end well and I am quite bored of those.