CRUSH (2022): Unmemorable title for a delightful gay teen romcom about nerdy artist Paige Evans (Rowan Blanchard), who ends up on the track team and finds herself in an awkward romantic triangle with hot teammate Gabriela Campos (Isabella Ferreira) and Gabby's sister AJ (Auli'i Cravalho), who is frustrated at always living in her sister's shadow. The actual plot isn't much, in particular a rather contrived subplot about Paige trying to unmask a mysterious graffiti artist called KingPun (whose unauthorized murals on school property Paige has been accused of creating), but a winning cast and a very witty script make it great fun, and it's heartening to see LGBT characters integrated seamlessly into this kind of comedy rather than being treated as tokens or punchlines. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Yes! VERDICT: One of the more endearing teen comedies in recent memory, particularly recommended if you liked BOOKSMART, but wished it were gayer.
A movie that sounded good and wasn't:
GRAY MATTERS (2006): The '00s saw a minor boom in lesbian coming-out movies featuring nonthreatening closeted and/or sexually repressed lipstick femmes, often played by straight actresses. This mediocre entry stars Heather Graham as Manhattan ad exec Gray Baldwin, who has never even considered the possibility that she might be gay until her brother Sam (Tom Cavanagh) gets engaged to hot zoologist Charlie (Bridget Moynahan), whom Gray promptly falls for. Lots of talent, including Alan Cumming, Sissy Spacek, Molly Shannon, and a guest appearance by Gloria Gaynor as herself, but not much energy, and Gray is one of those bland romcom heroines with a handful of harmless quirks instead of a personality. The lackluster script also makes some very questionable creative choices, including trying to convey Gray and Sam's closeness by having them constantly mistaken for a couple (eww!) and having Sam rush to marry Charlie, who then bows out almost completely in the extremely lethargic second half. The third act is further marred by some transmisogynistic nonsense with Cumming sneaking into a lesbian bar in drag, and culminates in Gray managing to find a worse romantic alternative than snogging her sister-in-law. If it sounds perverse, it really isn't, at least not on purpose — the whole movie is so sexually timid that you could probably watch it with your grandma without having to hide your face, and the final scene's contrived faux-uplift feels like a yogurt commercial. CONTAINS LESBIANS: So it says. VERDICT: A lesbian movie for people who have never knowingly met a wlw in real life.
A movie that started off okay, but turned out badly:
THE OTHER WOMAN (2014): Initially silly but ultimately distasteful comedy, directed by Nick Cassavetes, about slick corporate lawyer Carly (Cameron Diaz) discovering that her hunky new boyfriend Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is actually married, and then bonding with Mark's distraught wife Kate (Leslie Mann) — who soon realizes that Mark is also cheating on her with the imposingly stacked Amber (Kate Upton). Kind of fun for the first hour, with a nice rapport between Diaz, Mann, and eventually Upson; Diaz inevitably seems stiffer than she obviously wants to be in comedies like this, but Mann is frequently hilarious, and Upson does well with her amusing if unchallenging dumb-blond role. Unfortunately, Melissa K. Stack's uneven script then takes some repugnant turns, including Kate deciding the best way to hurt Mark is to put feminizing hormones in his smoothies; an offensive transmisogynistic gag involving Amber trying to persuade Mark to have a threesome with a girlfriend who turns out to be a heavily stubbled man in a dress; and Amber then lying to Mark about having chlamydia so he'll be forced to take antibiotics for an STI he doesn't have. The second half is a weird mishmash of juvenile farce and "Y'know, even middle-class white ladies go to prison for that" wire- and bank-fraud-related escalation, seasoned with splashes of racism. Don Johnson and Nicki Minaj have small roles as Carly's Don Juanish father and sassy secretary, respectively. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Even scenes like Carly and Kate goggling at Amber's bikini-clad pulchritude are painfully straight. VERDICT: Gross transphobia, a very clumsy ending, and too many uncalled-for lapses in taste sour what otherwise would have been a moderately entertaining #girlpower comedy.
