Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Review- This Kiss (DVD)



This Kiss (DVD)

2007
Contemporary/ Lesbian character

When childhood best friends Juliet and Lucy reunite in sun-soaked Australia after a decade, they initially find it rather natural to slip into laughter and intimate bonding despite the fact that they barely recognize each another and an unresolved incident from their long-ago past looms over their heads. Of course, the operative word in the previous sentence is "initially."

I knew nothing about what this movie was about. Again, I perused through my library selection and am sort of just watching all the lesbian/bi themed movies available.

I’d love to say that this is a really good movie, but it didn’t quite make it for me. It’s a good film if you’re in the mood for the type of story in which childhood friends reconnect after years apart and go through the process of healing old wounds. On this level, it’s a decent movie.

It suffers too many issues though from stilted over acting to choppy pacing and weird filming. It’s kind of like watching an amateurish camcorder film. However if the story and acting were a bit smoother, I think it would have been a decent look at a coming out story.

What I did like about it was that both characters feel ashamed about something and show a vulnerability that’s very realistic.

Juliet is a high-powered company executive who travels the world. She’s under an extreme amount of stress and is popping pills to cope. Told to take a short holiday, she decides to go back to her home town, look up her old best friend and go to their 10th year high school reunion.

When Lucy looks out the window sees her old friend getting out of the car, she freaks and refuses to answer the door at first. She’s gained a lot of weight and feels embarrassed. She’s also still living in the house she grew up in supposedly happily married with two children. She eventually invites Juliet in who is shocked to see her friend looking so different.

As the day wears on, the chit chat goes from superficial topics, to reminiscing teenage events to what their lives are like now to really getting into some deep and old wounds from events that happened before Juliet took off.

Major confessions also happen and while Lucy is jealous that Juliet is skinny and gorgeous and living a full life, she also sees that Juliet isn’t living the great life she thinks.

The big reveal, which was no reveal really, was that Juliet shares with Lucy that she’s a lesbian. It’s something Lucy knew when they were teenagers and she’s shocked that Juliet’s making a bit deal of it.

“The kiss” is part of what happens towards that end of their day together and it’s very awkward for various reasons.

This isn’t a lesbian love story. It’s a story about two friends, one who’s a lesbian who is trying to come to terms with it years later and goes back to the one girl to whom she had her first same sex attraction to “confess” and move on.

I give it a skip if you thought you might like to watch it. If the acting were a bit better, or if I actually believed that Juliet was a lesbian and in angst about it—the actress came off as someone out of touch with actually being a lesbian—it would be a good flick to watch.

Heat Level: 0

Grade: Was just OK

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