52 Films By Women: Suicide Kale (2016)

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By Andrea Thompson

Can be a groundbreaking and a little cliche at the same time? I’d say yes, because the indie film “Suicide Kale” embraces this inherent contradiction. Note that I say indie film, a label which has been somewhat co-opted by major studios, mostly as an excuse for an endless series of cutesy quirks which typically act as a sort of substitution for an actual plot. But “Suicide Kale” is very much an indie film, and was actually shot over the course of a few days at the home of one of the leads using natural light and equipment filmmakers already owned.

In other words? “Suicide Kale” was clearly a labor of love, and not just because it revolves around two couples, one five years married and other other a mere month into dating. The same old story? Most definitely. But cliches can also be something of a privilege only granted to a select few, and “Suicide Kale” is on one level about taking a story that has been almost exclusively set among straight white people and enacting it among queer women, three of four of whom are women of color. 

These women are also given all the depth and character they are seldom granted by straight filmmakers, and that this movie is even came to exist is due to close collaboration, both among the crew, most of whom were queer women, and the four lead actors, who also improvised additional dialogue. Nearly the entire film also takes place in the aforementioned donated home, director Carly Usdin’s wife is one of the film’s producers, and also takes on cinematography duties, doing a damn good job exploiting the natural beauty of Southern California to even greater perfection, and screenwriter Brittani Nichols also plays one of the leads. 

Nichols couldn’t be accused of lazy writing, since her character Jasmine and new girlfriend Penn (Lindsay Hicks) find themselves in a situation where there is no script when they head to the home of their married friends Billie (Jasika Nicole) and Jordan (Brianna Baker, also the house loaner) for a dinner party and discover a hidden suicide note. What’s a houseguest and friend to do? Head back into the kitchen and continue as usual? Certainly not talk openly and honestly about what they’ve found, as that would put something of a damper on the film’s comedic spirit. 

And “Suicide Kale” is very much a comedy, one that allows for plenty of darkness in a place so brightly bohemian and liberal that couples share their dog with another family out of fear of placing it in a toxic environment. Good gravy. 

Anyhow, anyone expecting the wit to flow long will be disappointed, as the dialogue has more in common with the stuff of mumblecore than your typical romcom. If the note’s author is a mystery, other things are clear enough, like the fact that ‘perfect couple’ Billie and Jordan are experiencing difficulties. Jasika Nicole is the film’s standout, revealing everything not through dialogue, which is unremarkable by choice, but through her tone, which becomes almost unbearably fraught whenever she’s alone with her wife, to her wide, fake smile as she casually reveals how her marriage has decayed. Your heart breaks for her, and for the complexity women like her are rarely allowed to portray on-screen.

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It’s revolutionary in its quiet way, as is (spoiler!) the lack of suicide in a film which not only consists of soley queer of characters, but is completely devoid of men. Bechdel test? Not needed here. If the film’s ending is also ambiguous, it packs more progress and general boldness in a mere 80 minutes than most films do in two hours, even managing to put the so-called healthy couple on ground that becomes nearly as shaky as the marriage which seems on the verge of shattering. Now that studios are supposedly hungry for diverse content, I’m hoping “Suicide Kale” isn’t a complete fluke, and that these kinds of stories will be told by a greater variety of people.

Suicide Kale is streaming on iTunes, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Kanopy.

52 Films By Women: Point Break (1991)

Twentieth Century Fox

By Andrea Thompson

For all the bluster and male machismo on display in Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 cult masterpiece “Point Break,” there’s a subtlety to it. Yes, behind the abs, the beaches, the surfing, the action sequences that include pit bulls being thrown around, airplane jumps, and robberies...there are some deep undercurrents.

The movie actually spent quite a few years in development, with various directors, casts, and titles attached and discarded by the time Bigelow came into the picture while she was still married to James Cameron, who is one of the producers. Both of them also apparently did quite a bit of rewriting on the script, even if they never received credit for it, and the result was a film that contains some of the best characters and action cinema has ever seen.

This rebirth of sorts accounts for much of the movie’s tone, which could be called outright ridiculous at times, even if it’s always enjoyable. “Point Break” is for all intents and purposes an 80s movie, and it has nearly all the staples of the decade’s cop dramas. There’s the loose cannon cop, the boss who takes every chance to eviscerate him, the ridiculous plot that includes surfers who rob banks to fund their totally awesome lifestyles, blustery banter, and its apparent embrace of all things machismo. Even our lead rookie cop Johnny Utah (oh, what a name), played by Keanu Reeves, is a former Rose Bowl-winning football quarterback.

Dig a little deeper though, and there’s much of the more progressive vibes that would come to define the 90s. Take the love interest, Tyler (Lori Petty). A name like that practically screams androgynous, and sure enough, Tyler is no unflappable blonde beach goddess in a bikini framed in a holo of light as she soaks up the California sun. When Utah first meets her, she’s dressed in a wetsuit, barely even framed as she scrambles in the chaos of the ocean to save Johnny from drowning after his disastrous attempt to learn how to surf. When he tells her his name, she shouts back, “Who cares!”

With her brunette pixie haircut and deeply 90s wardrobe, Tyler is feminine but not objectified. Her and Utah’s relationship, which eventually does become romantic, is far more equal than in most action movies. Tyler is the one who teaches Utah to surf, and her presence and framing itself is a commentary on the sexism of the genre. Bigelow literally films Tyler and Utah on the same level, rather than lingering lasciviously on Petty’s body, and Tyler constantly pushes back against the toxicity she encounters. When she is eventually, inevitably held hostage, that is when her wardrobe becomes far more traditionally feminine, with Bigelow dressing Tyler in a short white nightie.

Tyler is also the one to warn Utah about Bodhi (Patrick Swayze, RIP) one of the most iconically charismatic villains the movies have ever produced. From the start, Bodhi and Utah’s relationship has a deep undercurrent of homoeroticsm, with the kind of intense, love at first sight moments that’s typically framed as romantic, as Utah admires Bodhi’s surfing prowess as he is indeed framed and surrounded by the sunlit waves.

The late Swayze threw everything into this role, and it shows. He is entirely believable as a leader of a group of surfers so completely under his sway that they remain true believers even as they’re bleeding to death, a result of Bodhi chasing greater and greater highs.

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That is indeed what makes this, or rather his, group unique. They aren’t exactly robbing banks for the money, which they use to fund their surfing adventures. They justify it by a kind of spiritual philosophy, which Bodhi neatly sums up when he tells them, “We are here to show those guys that are inching their way on the freeways in their metal coffins that the human spirit is still alive.” It’s a grand statement, but then, junkies are pretty good at rationalizing their behavior. These guys risk their lives surfing the biggest waves, and their crime spree is little more than an extension of that same sickness. 

As Tyler points out in one of her many warnings to Utah, Bodhi can sense that Utah shares his sickness, and it’s no accident that Bodhi’s true toxicity is revealed via Tyler. He may wax sad about how he despises violence, but he sets up Tyler’s kidnapping so perfectly, Utah has no choice but to go with Bodhi’s demands and help him rob a bank. Bodhi may grieve when things go horribly wrong and the bodies start piling up, but he refuses to stop, even as he loses the rest of his team.

As Utah is pulled into circumstances that take him closer to, and eventually beyond the edge and he suffers his own losses, he in a sense becomes Bodhi’s final victim. He remains under his sway, even after he manages to track Bodhi down, overpower him, and subdue him. Ultimately, Utah can’t bear to see his wild man in a cage, and releases him so Bodhi can die doing what he loves: surfing the once-in-a-lifetime wave that will kill him, while Utah walks away and tosses his badge in the ocean.

Bigelow makes all this fun, tragic, and yes, deeply sexy without lingering too much on the bodies of the various surfers, male or female. It takes a hell of a director to get us to feel so much of the rush her characters feel, whether in the ocean, on a robbery, an iconic foot chase, or free falling through the air. You’d think it would’ve led to far more action films directed by women, but alas, change comes slow...until it doesn’t.

52 Films By Women: Lady Bird (2017)

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

When Greta Gerwig’s masterpiece “Lady Bird” came out in 2017, it was lavished with much-deserved critical praise, and some record-breaking commercial success, given that it had the highest grossing limited theatrical release by a female director. It also inspired a highly contentious debate, one that seemed entirely beside the point, and often had misogynistic over and undertones. Was the film’s central relationship, that of between the title character played by Saoirse Ronan, and her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) abusive? Or more accurately, was Marion an abusive parent?

I suppose when you have a mother who is as imperfect, and yes, at times outright cruel to her daughter, such conclusions can hardly be avoided. Why did I call it beside the point? Because Gerwig captures each character, be they front and center or supporting, with such nuance and precision, that it doesn’t really matter. No one achieves that magical, wholly impossible state where they become so perfect they’re worth rooting for at all times. 

That includes Lady Bird, or Christine, a student at a Catholic high school in Sacramento, California, in 2002. Lady Bird feels stifled by her surroundings, referring to her hometown as “the Midwest of California,” longing to escape to college on the East Coast, specifically to New York City, that mecca of all who are even slightly artistically inclined, or just ambitious in general. It’s a move her mother vehemently opposes due to financial concerns.

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Nevertheless, Marion and Lady Bird’s bond is very real, strong, and complicated like many mother-daughter bonds tend to be. Marion may belittle her daughter when she doesn’t do simple things like put her clothes away, shame her for being unaware of her father’s depression, and constantly accuse her of being ungrateful, but the painful beauty of the film is that it’s understandable, albeit more so from our safe distance. Marion has endured the stress of a childhood which included an abusive alcoholic mother, and an adulthood where her financial situation remains tenuous, partly due to her husband’s mental health, and eventually, his job loss. Then there’s the money she shells out for the Catholic school Lady Bird finds so suffocating.

None of this excuses Marion’s behavior, which includes refusing to speak to her daughter after she discovers she’s planning on attending college in New York, despite Lady Bird’s tearful pleas and apologies, but it does make her human, and thus, forgivable. To paraphrase Cheryl Strayed, it’s a view of a relationship that’s “happy, humane, and occasionally all fucked up,” with an emphasis on the latter component. Most films refuse to acknowledge the role money has in shaping a person’s life and mindset, but the family’s class status dominates their decisions and how they interact with each other and the world.

In her influential essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf described how her mindset drastically changed after she inherited a substantial amount of money. Before, she had taken whatever odd jobs, writing or otherwise, that were available to her. It was a life of “fear and bitterness,” consisting of work that was hard yet difficult to live on, and always feeling the need to flatter because it seemed so necessary. Getting her own money, an amount that was enough to provide food and shelter, changed everything. She had everything she needed and always would. “Therefore not merely do effort and labour cease, but also hatred and bitterness,” Woolf wrote. “I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me.” Very few women will experience such a reversal of fortune, and it’s the rare person who can maintain a mental equilibrium in the face of such constant pressures, which include the continual erosion of the social and economic safety net.

At least we are reassured that Marion’s sacrifices will eventually pay off, even if it isn’t explicitly stated. This movie is at least somewhat autobiographical, and while Lady Bird heads off to college in NYC, but it’s clear the naive teenager still has a lot to learn. She’s willing to learn it though, and her bond with her mother will remain strong, if only because distance is generally the first step in children actually being able to not only get along with parents, but see them as human.