Best catch in years
Go Fish
Directed by Rose Troche
Produced by Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner
Reviewed by Kath Gelber
The world of lesbian feature films is not very large. As a result, the community has tended to be fairly undemanding and almost any lesbian feature has been successful in the box office simply because it's a dyke film.
Go Fish is different. It has achieved recognition and support because it's good. (It won Best Gay and Lesbian Feature at this year's Berlin Film Festival.) It's refreshing, it's funny, it's well-made, it's original and it makes you laugh. It tells real stories of real lesbians and moves beyond the coming out and emerging lesbian identity stories. And it's doesn't shy away from real physical intimacy between women — there's no hiding behind wafting white sheets Desert Hearts-style. Its characters are all out and confident about their sexuality. We can relate to them.
It's also a film which will be enjoyed by more than a lesbian audience, not just because designer dykes are popular chic these days, but because it's a good old-fashioned romance.
Go Fish isn't shy about going beyond the romantic ideals of love, either. It takes on many feminist and lesbian issues, including directly confronting notions of "political correctness", which have all too often divided rather than united the community. Troche makes a clear statement against setting up new prescriptions, new limitations on our communities as we continue the struggle for visibility and acceptance — on our own terms.
Central to the story is Max's (played excellently by Guinevere Turner) lack of a date, a situation she has been in for ten inexplicable months, and her friends' attempts to pair her up with another woman-in-need-of-loving, Ely. The friends include Evy, who still gets harassed by her ex-husband, Kia who is a college lecturer and mentor to the whole group and Daria, a too-cute dyke never lacking for a date of her own.
Produced on a tiny budget, Troche said of Go Fish, "I want people to like the film because they've really watched it". She can rest easy on that one. So far, everyone loves it. If you're in need of a lift, or a reminder that romance does exist, check it out.