THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
GIRL MEETS girl. Girl thinks about girl. Girl dates girl. Girl ponders if this is THE girl.
``Go Fish'' is uncompromising - the vagaries of dating, with all the hesitancies and uncertainties, are played as if they are universal, regardless of sexual orientation. The characters are five working class Chicago people who talk a great deal about life and its absurdities. Two of them, after the mischievous setups of the other three, begin dating.
The hit of this year's Sundance Film Festival, ``Go Fish'' has been hailed as a landmark in lesbian filmmaking because it was picked up by the Samuel Goldwyn company and, in its initial releases, has reached a large crossover audience. There is little reason for anyone to be nervous about it. The wry humor and relentless intimacy play as more commonplace than shocking. The film presents the everydayness of lesbianism.
Directed, produced and co-written by Rose Troche, the black-and-white film is amateurishly filmed and acted, but it still manages a sense of humor that is often infectious.
Guinevere Turner, who co-wrote the script, plays Max, a 24-year-old Chicago writer who hasn't had a date in almost a year. She's as pert as a young Sandra Dee, complete with a baseball cap worn backward - yet she is interested only in finding ``the right one.''
The film's most interesting and vulnerable character is Ely, a shy, older, hippie-looking veterinarian's assistant who is initially dismissed by Max as being ``ugly.'' Ely has nothing to do with anyone, supposedly because she's committed - but her so-called lover has been thousands of miles away, in Seattle, for three years.
Their friends are as diligent as Dolly Levi of ``Hello, Dolly'' in their matchmaking. Max eventually learns that looks aren't everything as she discovers that talking with Ely is amazingly easy.
There is a lot of talking here and too many efforts at tricky camera angles, which call attention to the novice director. The budget is so low that it shows more than it should. The film techniques are more amateurish than they needed to be.
Nevertheless, there is a good deal of humor. Among the film's more disarming gimmicks are little intermissions in which the talking heads of the actors are seen in close-up as they gossip about the other characters and the plot.
The characters seem curiously independent of the prejudices and biases that one might think would affect their lives. It is a rather claustrophobic viewpoint, but the viewer is eventually persuaded to believe it could, and does, exist.
Director Troche is intent upon showing us that the absurdities of sexuality are humorous, no matter what the particular sexuality. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW ``Go Fish''
Cast: Guinevere Turner, V.S. Brodie, T. Wendy McMillan
Director: Rose Troche
Screenplay: Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner
Music: Brendan Dolan and Jennifer Sharpe
MPAA rating: (not rated by MPAA, but contains sexual situations,
discreet nudity, language)
Mal's rating: 2 1/2 Stars
Locations: Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk
by CNB