52 Films By Women: Wild Nights With Emily (2018)

By Andrea Thompson

“Wild Nights With Emily” is meant to evoke laughter and rage in equal measure. Rage against the forces that literally erase history, but also joy and humor for those who manage to contribute to it against all odds. It’s one of those rare films where a director’s perspective also feels like an insider’s view of an invisible, almost parallel history as seen via a great love story, one that happened to be between two women. 

In such a case, calling director Madeleine Olnek a lesbian filmmaker isn’t identity poltics or an unneeded qualifier, it’s an important distinction, since she’s exploring what is in a very real sense her own history, one which she (pretty successfully) argues has been suppressed, despite ample evidence of its existence. She makes her case so well that it’s especially irksome that I can’t help but compare “Wild Nights” to another film about the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson, “A Quiet Passion,” even though it came out in 2016, a full two years prior.

Such is the case though, so might as well get the comparisons over with. “A Quiet Passion” was directed by Terence Davies (who is queer himself) and featured a marvelous performance by Cynthia Nixon as Dickinson. “Passion” doesn’t reduce the poet to a lovesick woman forever pining after a man by any means, but it does completely ignore the passionate, very sexual relationship Dickinson apparently had with her sister-in-law Susan, instead depicting Dickinson’s life as one dominated by loneliness, celibacy, and hardship. It serves as a kind of time capsule, capturing the sense of a life lived in a very specific time and place, with little to remind us of our own.

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“Wild Nights” doesn’t so much counter such narratives as gleefully kick them to the curb in a fashion that ties our past into how we live now. It begins with a prim and proper narrator stating how there’s been far too much emphasis on Emily Dickinson’s (Molly Shannon) relationship with her sister-in-law Susan (Susan Ziegler)...as the two women start passionately making out, then fall to the ground, where the rest of their activities, tastefully concealed behind a couch, need no further implications. Just how do such open secrets remain undiscovered? According to Olnek, it’s because the society around them was so damn inept their affair was imaginable. 

This means the men who populate the film, including Emily’s brother Austin (Kevin Seal), who was married to Susan, don’t come off well, but their unthinkingly casual sexism isn’t just pretty damn feasible, it’s familiar. Olnek’s goal is to rewrite the image we have of Emily Dickinson, and she makes a point to thank the sources of the research she uses as her foundation. To Olnek, Emily was that neighborhood weirdo you actually wanted to meet, who gives the neighborhood kids cool treats, and opted out of social gatherings not due to timidity, but lack of interest. She saw the people she wanted to, not those deemed mandatory for the sake of conformity. And because Susan and her family lived right next door, she had easy access to the person she wished to see most.

Perhaps one of the movie’s greatest accomplishments is allowing both women to occasionally be imperfect together, as well as happy. While “Wild Nights” does depict Susan as the kind of intelligent, loving partner we all long for, it also takes pains to portray their relationship as complicated, even prone to bouts of infidelity on Emily’s part at times. But really, when your other half is a talented poet, it’s rather difficult to stay angry. Their bond is also based on equality, with each balancing out the other and providing support, which is sorely needed, given that the male establishment was reluctant to publish Emily, who here is hardworking, ambitious, and eager for publication, rather than the shy, delicate woman who was too timid to show her work to others. 

This is where Mabel (Amy Seimetz) the film’s villain, comes in. As “Wild Nights” tells it, she may be the one who is mostly responsible for Dickinson being published, albeit posthumously, but she accomplished it by essentially creating the image of her that we know today. She was also Austin’s mistress, and both were far less discreet about their affair than Emily and Susan, which had humiliating consequences for not only Susan, but their children. Yet Mabel is also not a one-dimensional villain. She too is ambitious, talented, and creatively stifled, longing for an outlet and constantly rejected by the smiling, condescending men around her. Publishing Emily allowed her to finally display her skills, and she was willing to work within the system to do it. She knew what would sell and what would not, as Susan’s daughter painfully discovered when she tried to correct the narrative being spun about her mother and her aunt to a mostly nonexistent audience.

But the movie also holds Mabel accountable. In Olnek’s eyes, her actions weren’t just a crime, but a kind of murder. For “Wild Nights,” this is the real tragedy, and the film refuses to wallow in Emily’s suffering by showing her decline in the days leading up to her death, saving its anger for how eager people were to rewrite her life before she was even buried. It must have been far easier to give Emily fame once she herself wasn’t around to complicate things by, say, contradicting the publishers who of course supported women’s rights and the need for their voices to be heard, but bemoan how they are “barely able to find any.” In the film’s brutal ending scene, a split-screen hammers the point home, with Mabel preparing Emily’s poetry and letters for publication by literally erasing Susan’s name from them while Susan was bathing Emily’s lifeless body for burial.

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A bit much? Maybe, maybe not. The sound of Mabel’s erasure continues throughout the epilogue, which paints a picture of a truth that is continuing to slowly emerge over the last, oh, 100 years or so, from a time that was simultaneously more risque and constricted than most wanted to acknowledge. Even if Olnek has a few blind spots herself, managing to give Black men a few lines and a bit of a presence while not extending the same courtesy to Black women, she at least doesn’t pretend that our current time is so much better. Even if we’re finally starting to uncover the legacy of those who were never absent in the first place, their invisibility and the accompanying lies continue to endure.

52 Films By Women: The Dilemma of Desire (2020)

The Dilemma of Desire

By Andrea Thompson

If you didn't know what you were getting into with the SXSW documentary “The Dilemma of Desire,” it gets right to the point by trying to find the clitoris in the original Gray's Anatomy. (The MEDICAL book people, not the series. Get your mind out of the gutter.) Not only is it apparently nowhere to be found on the page it's listed in the table of contents, but there's also no pictures of female anatomy, while the male sexual organs, including the penis, are meticulously depicted. “It's almost as if they wiped womanhood out of the text,” mused Stacey Dutton, a neuroscientist.

Dutton is an activist who has made it her mission to correct such omissions and outright fallacies in the scientific community. Her work was sparked by a confounding realization – she was a biologist who was teaching a class on the biology of womanhood, and she still had no idea what a clitoris looked like. A quick Google search led her to artist Sophia Wallace's work, who has her own story of being shocked at discovering that so much of what she was taught about her anatomy and sex itself turned out to be false. “It's akin to these ideas that we used to have in medieval times, that the universe revolved around the Earth,” Wallace stated. “It's a similar idea of what sex is, that it revolves around the straight male erection.” Thus does our introduction to cliteracy truly commence.

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It won't exactly be a surprise that this overt silencing is the main thread of “The Dilemma of Desire,” but the brilliant thing is that many of the talking heads in the doc aren't talking heads at all, or rather, they're not scientists or the co-founder and VP of a sex toy company that emphasizes the female perspective and designs its products accordingly. They're women of various ages and races who are struggling to own their bodies and their sexuality. Many speak of repressive upbringings where they were told, either outright or in subtler fashion, that they had no right to their own pleasure. The more the doc unfolds, the clearer it becomes just how much this messaging permeates not just our culture but world culture, which shames women's sexuality while simultaneously using it to sell practically everything.

Ironically, this often gives women the illusion of power while depriving them of it, usually under a guise of liberation, where women can safely be encouraged to have sex as long as they cater to male pleasure. Easy targets like the porn industry come to mind, but “The Dilemma of Desire” is more interested in the big picture while sending a simple message that's anything but simplistic. Power, control, and how women are routinely deprived of both, is the main subject, but the true focus is on how women are taking back ownership of their lives and bodies in a world where fear of women's power, especially their sexual power, is reaching entirely new levels.

The Dilemma of Desire

Such commitment means the inevitable Donald Trump mention doesn't occur until the last ten minutes of the film's nearly two hour runtime, and by then his mere symbolization of an ongoing sickness has long since become clear. Director Maria Finitzo may not speak or appear on-screen, but her presence is continual as she guides “The Dilemma of Desire” through the myriad complexities of its own topics, with a respect for her diverse subjects other filmmakers mostly dream of achieving. They were clearly well-chosen, as they do a fantastic job of articulating the message of empowerment Finitzo clearly wants to send, as each finds their own joy and freedom despite the many obstacles in their path to both.

52 Films By Women: The Watermelon Woman (1996)

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By Andrea Thompson

To watch Cheryl Dunye's 1996 masterpiece “The Watermelon Woman” is to notice something new and engaging every time. Cheryl Dunye, who was the first Black lesbian to direct a film, also wrote, edited, and plays the lead, but if there's a further thing from a vanity picture, then I don't know it. In fact, the first time I watched it, I had no idea so much of it was fiction.

Even if you knew nothing about the background of “The Watermelon Woman,” it's clearly a very personal film. Dunye even plays a fictionalized version of herself, an aspiring filmmaker who documents her search for an actress who played a number of stereotypical 'mammy' roles in the 1930s and was mostly credited as 'The Watermelon Woman.' As Cheryl delves deeper into The Watermelon Woman's history, she discovers her name was Fae Richards (Lisa Marie Bronson) and that she was also “in the family,” aka queer.

Just how Cheryl goes about this research in a pre-Internet world is only one of the many, many ways this film sends out the serious 90s vibes. Well, that and the outfits, especially what some people thought were so damn edgy. Cheryl not only uses human sources (such as her own mother, who basically plays herself) for much of her information, she actually works in a video store, complete with actual VHS tapes to rent. It's enough to bring early Tarantino to mind, a filmmaker who was also known for working in a video store and made a film led by a Black woman the following year.

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Needless to say, the similarities pretty much end there. While Tarantino has gone on to have a big enough career to be able to bitch and moan about how cruel the industry is to old white men, Cheryl Dunye's work is lesser-known, shall we say, although more recently she's become rediscovered enough for “The Watermelon Woman” to get a 20th anniversary restoration and a theatrical rerelease, and for Dunye herself to become a prolific TV director. This is in spite of her film not only including elements that have only become mainstream relatively recently, from the film's genre, which is a kind of meta docu-fiction, to the many issues she raises, from white feminism to the erasure of Black history.

“The Watermelon Woman” is meta on a level few films have been able to pull off. Dunye ended up having to create much of the limited history her fictional counterpart is able to discover, which in reality was either nonexistent or beyond the film's budget. Cheryl's own involvement with Diana (Guinevere Turner), a white patron at the video store, also begins around the time she discovers Fae was romantically involved with Martha Page, a white woman who directed many of the films Richards acted in, and who was played by Dunye's real-life partner at the time, Alexandra Juhasz.

Cheryl's own disillusionment with Diana also parallels a few revelations about the nature of Fae and Martha's relationship, much of which acts a brutal rebuke of white feminism, with many of the white women ranging from racist to well-meaning, or just outright tone-deaf. That said, Diana and Cheryl's involvement is the reason for one of the best lesbian sex scenes ever filmed, even if it did cause a backlash that involved criticism of the funding it received from the National Endowment of the Arts. Hell, Cheryl even gets harassed by the police in one scene, who refuse to believe she didn't steal the camera she's using to film, and even call her boy. This kind of behavior is apparently so normal to her that the film never even mentions it again.

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The more Cheryl discovers about Fae, the more “The Watermelon Woman” becomes a moving tribute to those history ignored or actively silenced. In such cases, the film is very aware that the lives of the people who did manage to create will always be a mystery to a certain extent, but the film refuses to reduce any of its subjects to mere victims, with footage of Fae and June (Cheryl Clarke), the woman who became the Fae's great love, that speaks of a happy life lived in spite of dreams which remained forever deferred.

Film Girl Film Festival Finds New Home at the Avalon For Fifth Year!

By Andrea Thompson

Prepare yourselves dear readers, because there’s some news that has nothing to do with the coronavirus, even though we’ve already felt obliged to mention it in the first sentence. No, since this will be the Film Girl Film Festival’s fifth year, we wanted to do something special and change it up! So, big announcement is…the fest will be at the Avalon Atmospheric Theater!

What makes it more exciting is that the FGFF has taken place at the Underground Collaborative for the past four years, so this will be a big change! We’re grateful to the UC for providing us a home, and we’re looking forward to this new chapter at the Film Girl Film Festival.

On to the official business…the dates for the fest will be Nov. 13-15. The Avalon can be found in Bay View, at2473 S Kinnickinnic Ave. As usual, there will be an opening night party. We’ll have more details soon, but in the meantime, we’re of course still accepting submissions on Film Freeway: https://filmfreeway.com/submissions.

See you at the fest in the fall!

52 Films By Women: Miss Juneteenth (2020)

Sundance Institute

By Andrea Thompson

A mother in a small Southern town who pushes her daughter to compete in the same beauty pageant she won? This is the kind of scenario that just seems tailor-made for one stereotype after another, from the kind of demeaning, stereotypical has-been so desperate for her glory days she decides to sculpt her rebellious teenage daughter into the same mold she once filled so well, despite her daughter's clear objections.

But writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples would rather laugh at such tawdry plans – in her feature debut no less – and give us a touching love story between a mother and daughter which also doubles as a kind of coming-of-age for both. The fact that we're introduced to mother Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie) first is indicative of Peoples's determination to give her characters their due, rather than devolving into more pernicious stereotypes. Even if their behavior sometimes conforms to them, People's clear-eyed compassion makes all the difference.

There are no "baby mamas" or "welfare queens" here. #MissJuneteenth gives Black Moms the Beautiful, authentic, nuanced story they deserve.#Sundance2020 #sundance #womeninfilm #womenfilmmakers #momsinfilm https://t.co/ao62Xc0BpA

— Aisha Allen 🔜 #Sundance2020 (@Aishaimb) February 1, 2020

That empathy is primarily what makes it so hard to blame Turquoise for being nostalgic. Who wouldn't, given her past glory and pride as the winner of the Miss Juneteenth pageant, especially when her current job at a local restaurant, which she runs in everything but name (well, and title and salary) routinely involves cleaning toilets? Not that she has much time to feel sorry for herself, given that she's a single mother to the 15-year-old Kai (Alexis Chikaeze), who is beginning to envision a path for herself that's quite different from the one her mother has set for her?

Thankfully, Turquoise and Kai's differences never obscure the very real bond they have, which isn't only the movie's heart, but its backbone. Turquoise is never in denial about her daughter's reluctance to be a beauty queen, but while her nostalgia is always a factor, it's never her primary motivation, which is always a better life for Kai. For Turquoise, the pageant is the best way to provide that in a small town where resources and opportunities are scarce enough, but especially so for black women. From the name of the pageant, which is itself an ode to the day slavery was abolished, to the other characters, the majority of whom are also black, race isn't just a topic to be explored, but a force that shapes their lives and decisions.

Gender is also given equal weight. The Juneteenth pageant embodies prestige and history, but there's an actual tangible benefit to being a beauty queen. As in a full scholarship to any black university of the winner's choice...provided they follow the rules, since the organizers make it clear that the winner will represent not just history, but the ideal woman. As such, the contestants are expected to adhere to a strict, very gendered code of conduct in how they dress and conduct themselves, with very real consequences if they violate them. Turquoise knows this firsthand, given her pregnancy resulted in her disqualification from taking the traditional walk, crowning the next reigning queen, and her scholarship. Small wonder Kai finds such expectations restricting, dreaming instead of joining the school's dance squad, which the more conservative Turquoise frowns upon.

Sundance Institute

Think that division is going to translate into one of the film's most touching moments? Well, you're right, but it also brings words like irresistible, empowering, and inspiring to mind. Kai doesn't just discover a middle ground between her mother's interests and her own, she gives her own spin on both her pageant performance of Maya Angelou's “Phenomenal Woman” and her femininity, with a look that involves her natural hair. It's nicely complementary to Turquoise's cemented status as a non-traditional community leader, through her work at the bar, where's she very much respected, and her bond with many of the other town's residents, not to mention her two love interests. The emphasis, however, is always on Turquoise's own longing to create something of her own, which she manages to in her own non-traditional fashion.

In essence, “Miss Juneteenth” is an ode to black mothers in all their imperfect glory, with Turquoise often acting as a leader and mother to her community, even her own mother, a judgmental, alcoholic minister she's estranged from. Turquoise sacrifices for her child while being constantly reminded of the many ways she's seen as a failure, even making a party out of developments such as the lights being shut off. Survival and hope shine through above all.

52 Films By Women: Advantageous (2015)

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By Andrea Thompson

Determination didn’t seem like the right word to describe how far one mother was willing to go to provide a future for her daughter in the 2015 film “Advantageous.” What Gwen (Jacqueline Kim), the mother in question, was trying to accomplish was no less than fighting her way through an entire system built around the commodification of her body and her life. Hence my search for a word which would somehow adequately describe Gwen’s resolve to quietly triumph over the odds. Would any do her justice? Not a new discovery exactly, but rather, a rediscovery of sorts.

Dictionary.com defines perseverance as “steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.” However, there is another, theological element to the word, which is defined as, “continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation.” It’s a deceptively simplistic concept that might also be the ultimate dream, the source of every fairy tale: if we meet life’s difficulties with dignity, we will get a happy ending.

If only, if only. If only life didn’t give us so much to overcome, or at least a guarantee of some sort of reward for endurance. What truly makes Gwen’s struggles so damn heartbreaking isn’t only that salvation remains elusive, it’s the dystopian world she’s fighting is so damn familiar. At first, she and her 13-year-old daughter Jules (Samantha Kim) seem to be among the haves in a world where the have-nots are steadily growing more plentiful. And the most impoverished among them seem to be women.

It’s not exactly unfamiliar, but “Advantageous” reveals the brutality of this world in an understated, sensitive fashion, all within the budget the film was clearly on. The credit goes not only to director Jennifer Phang, but lead Jacqueline Kim, who also co-wrote the screenplay in addition to giving an incredible performance as a woman who comes to the realization that her hard-fought affluence is built upon an even shakier house of cards than she believed. After Gwen loses her job, everything threatens to come tumbling down.

True, Gwen had a cushy gig selling cosmetic procedures for the Center For Advanced Health And Living, but she was also working below rate on a contractual basis. Her firing is also the direct result of a backlash which emphasizes women returning to the home, as well as valuing their youth and beauty above all else. Gwen is only middle-aged, but the Center already views her as too old to appeal to the highly coveted younger demographic. The labor market has also mostly gone pure tech, and the only viable employment Gwen can find is as an egg donor, since women are rapidly becoming infertile. To make matters worse, Gwen is also on the verge of ensuring Jules a place in an elite world which is closing itself off to newcomers at an even more accelerated rate. A world that requires money for entry.

As Gwen’s desperation grows and she exhausts all her alternatives, she reluctantly decides to take the option the Center was manipulating her into all along, and undergo their radical new procedure, that of transferring a person’s consciousness into a new body. In Gwen’s case, it’s a younger, more racially ambiguous one, which will allow her to do her new job more effectively and boost the Center’s sales even more as Gwen 2.0. But like anything that seems too good to be true, it definitely is, and Gwen discovers it is not her consciousness itself which will be transferred, but rather a copy of it. This twin, essentially, will then awaken in her new body with all her memories and believe she is Gwen, since she’ll know nothing else. But she’s have an entirely separate awareness. Her particular, original consciousness will cease to exist, a murder in the name of progress.

Horrific? Very much so, but Phang and Kim are aware it isn’t accidental that a woman of color is sacrificed so a company can make its bottom line. Such systems often require a certain amount of complicity, more often than not by white women. That complicity isn’t addressed as personified by Jennifer Ehle’s role as Isa Cryer, who has unspecified, high-ranking position at the Center For Advanced Health And Living. The conversations between Isa and Gwen are a reflection of the vast gulf between them, with Isa, the far more privileged white woman, casually referencing Gwen’s obstacles, including her more advanced years, as if the two weren’t about the same age.

Sundance Institute

Even their very real commonality is weaponized against Gwen. When Isa tells her, “There is nothing fiercer than a mother’s love,” it’s nothing approaching an attempt to connect. It’s an excuse, a way to convince herself that what she’s doing to Gwen isn’t murder, but an obstacle to be overcome, where her motherly instincts will surely enable her to pull herself up by her bootstraps. Just what happens to a bond as fiercely loving as the one between Gwen and Jules, who is unaware her mother is committing suicide to ensure her future?

The answer is one of the creepier aspects of “Advantageous.” Jules initially believes Gwen has simply awakened in a new body, but their past closeness is what makes Jules realize this latest model is an entirely different person. Freya Adams does fantastic work as Gwen 2.0, who advocates the very process that has caused her so much mental and physical anguish, and destroyed the love she felt for her daughter. Something has been lost, the film makes that clear. Perhaps because of Jules’s kindness, or because they have no one else, the two tentatively begin to form a new and complicated bond of their own, one which may be strengthened by the old one.

What remains would be easy to dismiss as fatalism, resignation, or conversely, slapped with the manditorily uplifting optimistic designation of resilience. But there’s nothing uplifting about where Gwen 2.0 ends up. Rather, it’s reminiscent of a very female strain of the aforementioned perseverance, one which mostly struggles in silence, finding grace and salvation in any small victories to be found. If it could be called noble, it’s also extremely unrewarding. While Gwen 2.0 may end with her formerly estranged family sitting around her in a beautiful park, it’s clear something undefinable and essential has been lost. She and Jules have just found grace where they can, even if salvation is out of reach.

52 Films By Women: Mansfield Park (1999)

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

I don’t want to meet the woman who doesn’t love Jane Austen. Many may adore her for the wrong reasons, but she deserves the accolades. With the film adaptation of “Mansfield Park” back on Netflix, it gave me an opportunity to delve into what is for me her most fascinating work, just as a miniseries based on her unfinished novel “Sandition” airs on PBS, and a new “Emma” movie hits theaters next month.

That I find “Mansfield Park” fascinating doesn’t make it my favorite Austen novel by any means. Of all her published works, it isn’t just the only one that could be drastically changed in a modern adaptation, it needs to be. The heroine Fanny Price, with all her passivity, timidity, and priggishness, would not suit today’s audiences, even if she’s depicted with great complexity, even a certain amount of irony. She’s also pretty much always right, which makes her potential to annoy even greater.

With all that, I can’t be unhappy with the changes the 1999 film “Mansfield Park” made to its source material. The words luminous presence gets thrown around a lot, but it’s still the best way to describe Frances O’Connor’s portrayal of the adult Fanny Price, who is sent by her impoverished family to live with her wealthier relations at their titular estate as a child. Patricia Rozema, who directed and wrote the film, isn’t trying to be faithful to the novel, but she does make a bold choice with Fanny’s love interest Edmund (Johnny Lee Miller), who’s also her cousin. Different times is another phrase that gets thrown a lot, but still...eew. Rozema keeps their familial status unchanged, and Miller plays Edmund with such compassion that you’ll get over the ick factor pretty quick.

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Their relationship is also a lot less creepy, with Edmund and Fanny being the same age and interacting as equals, rather than the timid, six-years-younger Fanny depending on him as a protector from her more inconsiderate relatives. Rozema also places even more emphasis on the female characters by eliminating Fanny’s brother William, another close, loving relationship of hers who was also a major plot device. Instead, it’s Fanny’s sister Susan (Sophia Myles) with whom she shares a close bond, despite being separated from her for years. Fanny’s letters to Susan and her writing ambitions are also the impetus for much of Fanny’s direct-to-camera narration.

Fanny’s interactions with Mary Crawford (Embeth Davidtz), her rival for Edmund’s affections, also have strong lesbian undertones, which would be anachronistic at best or exploitative at worst in the hands of a filmmaker less capable than Rozema, who instead imbues them with a vitality and naturalism that’s a kind of counter to the hetero dream world of the 1995 “Pride and Prejudice” miniseries. Taken on its surface, Mary and her brother, the swoonworthy Henry Crawford (Alessandro Nivola), would be the seductive, worldly Londoners who corrupt the morality of the sedate English countryside, but both Austen and Rozema know hypocrisy has no borders or boundaries.

Ethics were in short supply long before the Crawfords arrived anyway, given that the Bertram fortune is built upon slavery and colonialism from their estates in Antigua. If Austen subtly (to modern eyes) alludes to it, Rozema ensures that the slaves who fueled much of the world’s economy are very much present, even if they are kept as off-screen as they most likely were during this time period, forcibly removed from those who profited from their forced labor and wanted no reminders of it. In Fanny, Rozema even draws a kind of parallel between them, and how disposable and vulnerable she is. People think nothing of sending Fanny away, either from her birth family or her adopted one, or marrying her off at will to a wealthy, untrustworthy suitor, although thankfully she doesn’t fully equate their experiences.

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Not that the other women have it much better, even those with wealth and status. Lindsay Duncan plays a double role as Fanny’s mother, the haggard Mrs. Price and Mansfield matriarch Lady Bertram. The former chose the wrong man, one who never made a fortune and turned out to be a cad, stranding her in poverty and degradation. The latter has a comfortable home and life, but is also a drug addict who mostly spends her days in a languid, laudanum-induced daze. Fanny’s cousin Maria Bertram (Victoria Hamilton) chooses wealth over love, only to discover she’s trapped herself in a gilded cage. 

It’s Mary Crawford, though, who remains one of Austen’s most enjoyable, complicated characters. Like her brother Henry, she’s seductive, flirtatious, and charismatic, and disdains conventional morality and religion in her role as obvious foil to the righteous Fanny. Mary is also capable of great kindness, often standing up for Fanny when she’s mistreated, and showing herself to be capable of change. The film mostly follows Austen’s lead, even when she is the only one to suspect Edmund is in love with Fanny, even if it’s ultimately harsher on her. In another time, Mary might have been an astute businesswoman, but as it is, she is condemned for her cold calculation and amorality after a scandal threatens the reputation of the Bertram family. But her cold analysis is also the catalyst for the family’s realization that they have reaped what they have sown.

The changes Rozema made won’t suit everyone, especially not Austen purists. But Rozema doesn’t just love Jane Austen, she also respects her, and that appreciation is what allows her to make such drastic changes while staying true to Austen’s voice, with all the wit and satire she was known for. To quote the film itself, “It could have turned out differently, I suppose. But it didn’t.”

Film Girl Film's Top 15 Movies Directed by Women In 2019

By Andrea Thompson

2019 was a great year for women in film, with a variety of filmmakers bringing complex stories of women’s experiences to the screen. Below are theoness Film Girl Film has chosen as the standouts, with honorable mentions included.

15. Honey Boy

Amazon Studios

This is a film that screams vanity project. Shia LaBeouf not only penned the story of the turbulent childhood and young adulthood of Otis (played by Noah Jupe at 12 and Lucas Hedges at 22) a child star and obvious proxy, he also stars as Otis's alcoholic father James, whose good (ish) intentions are mostly stifled by his inability to cope with past traumas. But LaBeouf's eschews any kind of cheap thrills or bad behavior justification to bring us a deeply human story of a toxic father-son bond. Certainly LaBeouf's tormented patriarch, a sex offender who is verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive toward his son, has no right to our sympathy, yet he gets it anyway, mostly because LaBeouf doesn't excuse or even fully explain his behavior. He's mostly interested in exploring the history that made James and Otis the men they are, and depicting the tenderness that existed between them despite everything.

14. Jezebel

IMDB

Numa Perrier's deeply autobiographical film brings a black female gaze to sex work as it follows 19-year-old Tiffany (Tiffany Tenille), as she starts working as an internet fetish cam model. In Perrier's deeply complex portrayal, this world can be simultaneously empowering and exploitative, with Tiffany's older sister Sabrina, played by Perrier herself, serving as a mentor and voice of wisdom throughout. As much a coming-of-age story as an exploration of how each sister defines and exploits their sexuality, “Jezebel” disdains both melodrama and judgment for a thoughtful exploration of how those with few resources find a means to achieve power, financial stability, and their human connection.

13. Hustlers

STX Films

“Hustlers” is one of those films that could've just been a puritanical cautionary tale about the dangers of girls gone wild. Good thing writer-director Lorene Scafaria saves her anger for the patriarchy rather than the strippers who come up with a plan to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients after the recession hits. Even smarter, Scafaria anchors her story in the friendship between Ramona (Jennifer Lopez in a career-best performance), the originator of the scheme, and Destiny (Constance Wu). Before 2008, they and their co-workers are able to earn more than a good living, but after the financial crisis, their profession becomes less than viable. So they decide to drug wealthy Wall Street men and get them to spend ridiculous amounts of money, which they would then keep for themselves. By giving women who are normally sexualized furniture center stage, Scafaria allows us to share their delight in scamming the scammers, then their fear as their world inevitably unravels, resulting in an insightful, female-centric crime story that mostly unfolds sans judgement.

12. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Sony Pictures

Given that 2018 saw the release of the critically and commercially successful documentary “Won't You Be My Neighbor?,” did 2019 really need another film about Fred Rogers? Hold that thought, because “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” makes an enthusiastic case for yes. It's probably no coincidence that the posters for both films also mention kindness, since Fred Rogers not only advocated it, he seemed to embody it, and not only to the children who were the target audience of his wildly successful show “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.” Even if Tom Hanks doesn't have much of a resemblance to Mr. Rogers, he nevertheless seems to channel him and the values he tirelessly championed to an uncanny degree, enough to make journalist Lloyd Vogel's (Matthew Rhys) journey from cynic to believer feel fresh rather than tired. Director Marielle Heller also brings the same clear-eyed compassion that made “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” so heartfelt to this story of a budding friendship between two very different men.

11. Rafiki

IMDB

Star-crossed lovers were a thing long before film was, but Kenyan teenagers Kena and Ziki face more obstacles than most. Their fathers are not only running against each other in a local election, but they live in a deeply conservative society that expects them to be good wives and any LGBTQ relationships are legally punishable by jail or worse. As the love between Kena and Ziki grows, so too does the danger, leading to devastating consequences. Yet the joy the two find in each other, embodied in the gorgeous pink hues director Wanuri Kahiu bathes both in, outshines the trauma. Banned in Kenya for “clear intent to promote lesbianism in Kenya contrary to the law,” “Rafiki” nevertheless became the first Kenyan film to screen at Cannes, quickly finding acclaim while drawing attention to Kenya's anti-LGBT laws without catering to Western sensibilities.

10. Varda By Agnès

IMDB

If the documentary “Varda By Agnès” is difficult to define, it's because the late great filmmaker Agnès Varda herself defies anything resembling easy categorization. Like her other films, the premise of “Varda By Agnès” is deceptively simple, yet soon reveals layers of complexity which unfold throughout, as Varda looks back on her life and career while articulating her style of filmmaking. However, the doc is far more than a retrospective, and far less predictable, at one moment reminiscent of a casual chat with an old friend, the next an imaginative journey wherein a great artist instructs devoted cinephiles and neophytes alike on how she not only viewed, but interpreted the world. It's a fitting end to a decades-long career and life, both of which 90-year-old Varda defined on her own terms to the end.

9. The Farewell

IMDB

A movie with a character who happens to be a terminally ill grandmother is a tough sell for a comedy. But the matriarch who receives a fatal cancer diagnosis isn't just a side character in “The Farewell,” she's the central plot point. After struggling New Yorker Billi's (Awkwafina) beloved Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) is diagnosed, her family opt to keep her illness a secret and decide to throw a fake wedding to provide an excuse for them all to gather in China and celebrate Nai Nai one last time. And it's...pretty funny, with not just the expected dark humor, but a wide spectrum of hilarity abounding alongside the touching moments of grief. Based in part on writer-director Lulu Wang's own experiences, “The Farewell” is apt to make you laugh and cry not just in equal measure, but simultaneously.

8. Little Woods

Tribeca Film Festival

You can never have too much of Tessa Thompson, and “Little Woods” allows her to fully immerse herself into a role and world where a single wrong step could tear through a life with the force of a tornado. And she downright mesmerizes as Ollie, who finds herself in tight circumstances with a mere eight days left on her probation and the hope of a new life. Or rather, her somewhat estranged sister Deb (Lily James) does after their mother dies, and Deb and her son find themselves on the verge of homelessness and destitution. To help her family, Ollie decides to reenter the world of prescription drug smuggling, a dangerous but profitable business in their bleak rural North Dakota town. Remarkably, this is director Nia DaCosta's feature debut, and the fact that she gives us a brilliantly realized modern Western with a feminist twist, where a drug run to Canada also doubles as an attempt to receive a safe and low-cost abortion, is hopefully indicative of much more to come. Thankfully, there are already hopeful signs of just that.

7. Queen & Slim

Universal Pictures

“Queen & Slim” kicks off with its title characters on a date that is only remarkable for its lack of spark, but things get heated in the worst way after a police offer pulls them over for a minor issue, and things escalate, with Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) getting shot and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) shooting the officer in self defense. The two then go on the run together, with their bond and their relationship blossoming as they drive south through a lush vision of Black Americana. That they both come off as deeply human while remaining symbolic of the tragic human cost of racism seems due in large part to the near symbiotic creative melding of director Melina Matsoukas, who also directed Beyonce's “Lemonade,” and writer Lena Waithe, the creator of the series “The Chi” and who also wrote the acclaimed “Master of None” episode “Thanksgiving.” Their story is tragic, but it is also full of beauty and humor as Queen and Slim dare to hope for something better, even as they know the odds against such a thing are overwhelmingly stacked against them.

6. Fast Color

Lionsgate Publicity

It's said that not all heroes wear capes, and certainly none of the women with superhuman abilities do in “Fast Color.” This criminally underseen gem has many of the beats, but almost none of the familiar tropes of typical superhero fare. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays a woman named Ruth, a fugitive on the run from authorities attempting to harness her abilities, and most critically, from herself, since those abilities have become a destructive force she's unable to control. In this bleak dystopian future which is rapidly running low on resources, the key to Ruth's future may just lie in the home she fled years ago, where her estranged mother (Lorraine Toussaint) and daughter (Saniyya Sidney) embody a past she tried to escape, and a more hopeful future they may be able to bring to fruition.

5. The Souvenir

A24

Joanna Hogg's semi-autographical film “The Souvenir” is like a deceptively calm pond which conceals a raging torrent just beneath the surface. Honor Swinton Byrne, the woman responsible for the storm that's eventually unleashed, may still be constantly referred to as Tilda Swinton's daughter, but this film suggests that won't be the case for long. Her performance as Julie, a young film student in the 80s whose dreams are nearly derailed by her involvement with an older man who is also a heroin addict, is the kind of on-screen arrival that the term breakout role was made for. With part two arriving next year, it's hard to imagine how Hogg or Byrne will match the kind of urgency they brought to this film, but this creative pairing – which feels like a match made in cinematic heaven – could feasibly pull it off.

4. One Child Nation

One Child Nation

Director Nanfu Wang grew up in a time when China's infamous one-child policy was at its height, with every facet of society extolling the virtues of having a smaller family...and the consequences of disobedience. After Wang had a son, she decided to investigate the policy she'd never given much thought to and its impact. When she uncovered was a complex and horrific hidden history of forced abortions, child abandonment, and infants who were literally torn from their arms of their families and given to American couples for adoption, who were tragically unaware that they were abetting kidnapping. Wang fearlessly confronts her own complicity and that of her family and community as she delves into the past, and how China is attempting to erase it from its future.

3. Little Women

Sony Pictures

Greta Gerwig didn't just write and direct Louisa May Alcott's beloved 1868 novel, she brought it to life, with each of the four March sisters getting their due. Yes, even Amy. One of the most brilliant decisions Gerwig makes is to bring the book to the big screen in a nonlinear fashion, juxtaposing scenes from the sisters' idyllic childhood with their darker adulthood. While the Civil War rages, depriving them of their father, the March family becomes a matriarchal worldutopia, wherein Meg (Emma Watson), Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy (Florence Pugh) are free to explore their hopes and ambitions, guided by their beloved Marmee (Laura Dern), and befriended by their wealthy neighbor Laurie (Timothée Chalamet). As each sister struggles to find her way, Gerwig takes care to ensure that their lives not only feel familiar, but relevant as each wrestles with how to balance their dreams with the narrow expectations imposed on them.

2. Atlantics

IMDB

Mati Diop made history in more ways than one with her feature debut “Atlantics.” She was the first black woman to have a film in the main competition at Cannes, where “Atlantics” won the Grand Prix. The film more than lives up to the hype, with a touching love story that is also part supernatural fable and devastating indictment of modern exploitation and rampant poverty. Ada (Mama Bineta Sane) lives in a Senegalese suburb, and is promised to a wealthy man. But she is in love with Souleiman (Traore), a construction worker on a futuristic tower which is due to open soon. Souleiman and his co-workers haven't been paid for their labor in months, so they decide to take their chances and depart by sea in search of something better. As Ada waits for news of him as she prepares to marry, she gradually learns that the spirits of Souleiman and the other young men are possessing the bodies of the living and demanding justice. As Ada slowly comes to accept the truth and take control of her own life and body (she's forced to take a virginity test), Diop infuses her story with a beauty that never belies its sense of urgency for compassion in a world that can often seem short on it.

1.Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Neon

If Céline Sciamma had just wrote and directed a romance between two women who find the kind of love that leaves the screen burning from their mutual passion, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” would still have been one of the best films of the year. But Sciamma does so much more, making the case for an entire history that has mostly been unacknowledged by the art world. Not just of the female artists who managed to create in spite of the obstacles, but the lives of women in general, who are often not considered worthwhile subjects. (Times have sure changed, huh?) “Portrait” may take place in 18th century France, but its insights into the dynamics between artist and muse, how art is created, and how those who are silenced manage to find a voice, feels very much needed in our present moment.

Honorable mentions: Late Night, Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Booksmart, Hala