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These Walls Can Talk
What a relief. I'm a believer of the Public Enemy aphorism, "Don't believe the hype." When I received the press kit for HBO's If These Walls Could Talk 2, the sequel to the highest-rated film in the history of the cable channel, I doubted it would live up to the buzz. Fortunately, it does.
The fact that they preempted The Sopranos -- my favorite show du jour -- speaks volumes about HBO's support for this project. Too bad its marketing campaign was "Women. Love. Women" instead of "Women Loving Women."
On paper, Walls 2, as executive producer Ellen DeGeneres has referred to it, has a formidable pedigree. The three segments, which highlight the lesbian experience over three generations -- 1961, 1972, and 2000 -- were all scripted and directed by powerhouses. Each holds its own, and together the stories show the evolution of the identity and acceptance of lesbians in America. It is no small coincidence, I believe, that the progression from one piece to the next is from poignant sadness to uproar to euphoria.
The first segment, "1961," is written and directed by the steady hand of Jane Anderson. While she's best known for The Baby Dance, I most admire her black comedy, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. Vanessa Redgrave and Marian Seldes illuminate "1961" as a couple who have spent the better part of 50 years together. The piece begins with the two watching, appropriately, The Children's Hour, with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacClaine as two schoolteachers who are outed by vicious students. In "1961," nobody is out -- and that's the problem. When a sudden tragedy takes Seldes' life, distant relatives descend upon Redgrave, the emotional, if not legal, widow. Her bond goes unrecognized as her memories and property are stolen from her.
The second story, "1972," is co-authored by Sylvia and Alex Sichel, whose independent release All Over Me was the hit of Sundance a few years back. Directed by Martha Coolidge, it is set against turbulent times, during N.O.W.'s infamous lesbian purge, when the group refused to include issues of sexuality in its struggle for equal rights and feminism. In "1972," four roommates are thrown out of their campus group. This sends them to a dyke bar, where the femme Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek) meets the butch
Chloe Sevigny. While her sisters want to be accepted as lesbians by their feminist counterparts on campus, they refuse to embrace women who are "too butch." Chloe Sevigny, who was a striking femme fatale in Boys Don't Cry, is utterly credible and passionate as a bull dagger here.
The final piece marks the directorial debut of Anne Heche, who also wrote "2000." Ellen DeGeneres and Sharon Stone are deeply in love and trying to have their first baby. Their search for an agency for sperm donors and attempts to inseminate are taken seriously, and the comedy woven into "2000" is a release from the tension built up in "1961" and "1972." We know that for the couple, in this modern era, happily ever after is not only possible, but inevitable.
If These Walls Could Talk 2 will run throughout March on HBO. Beg, borrow, or steal a cable connection -- this effort by Team Todd (the producers of Austin Powers and its sequel) is a keeper.
Keeping Watch
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: White Witch Willow may or may not be
progressing towards a same-sex relationship with a fellow Wicca. Stay
tuned ...
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