Believably Lesbian
Girl Talk 4 -

BY PEGGY LUHRS

Girl Play

Directed by

Lee Friedlander
Starring Robin.
Greenspan, Lacie
Harmon, Dom Deluise,
and Mink Stole .
Wolfe Video, DVD
August 2005

his was one of my favorite

films this year. It was believ-

ablely lesbian, it was about
adults, and it was well acted and
well written. Mink’ Stole does a
fabulous turn as Robin’s.mother. «
And Dom Deluise is quietly’hys_ter-
ical as the director of the play "
which is the vehicle for these
women’s meeting and subsequent
love affair. The film is based on a
true story and played by the women
who lived it.

Leads Robin Greenspan and
Lacie Harmon shared the Best
Actress prize at the 2004 edition of
Outfest for Girl Play, based on the
play Real Girls.

The movie starts with the cast-

 

. ing call for a play and a funny turn

by Deluise as an oh-so-solicitous
director with a young male assis-
tant catering to his every whim. He
tells the women’ that to make the
play believable they must get to
know each other. He continues to
work this angle and the players
seem only too happy to take the .
chance to spend time together and
build a rapport, which of course
eventually overtakes their plans.

Lacie is single and plans
to stay that way. Robin is in
a six-year relationship and
she is convinced that she is
in a happy relationship. After
all, as she says, “Everything
was going great. I was in a
six-year relationship. We had
a townhouse, a cocker
spaniel, a cat, a circle of
friends, favorite restaurants
within a five-mile radius,
mutual funds, a CD collec-
tion, vacations, engagement
rings — our whole future
completely mapped out.” We
notice that there isn’t a lot of
connection between Robin
and Audrey them but Robin
doesn’t seem to have a clue
about what’s missing.

In what was probably a .
wise choice for an. independ-
ent film, the story moves
back and forth between
monologues by the actresses
and flashbacks of their lives.
This allows for high produc-
tion values and for us to get
the backstory in an amusing way as
well as the inner thoughts of each
of the women as they become ever
more deeply involved in the play
and each other and try to sort out
play and reality. (The DVD edition
of GirlPlay includes a 26-minute
featurette: “From Stage to Life: At
Play with Girl Play,” a behind-the-
scenes look at the film with direc-
tor Lee Friedlander.)

" Robin’s coming out to her
mother asplayed by Mink Stole is
both funny and touching, as is
much of the film. Lacie’s adven-

tures in bar pickups are also a reve- v

lation of lesbian life rarely
screened. Girl _Play was definitely a
favorite for theiSapphic Cinema
audience. Directed by Lee
Friedlander and played by actresses
Lacie Harmon and Robin
Greenspan — who lived the story
and wrote the screenplay with
Freidlander — I found this one of
the best independent lesbian films
I’ve seen. If you’re looking for a
love story with a bit of a twist that
you can still relate to — this is it.
V

Peggy Luhrs hosts Sapphic Cinema
nights at the _R.U.1 .2? Queer
Community Center in Burlington.

  

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