By Nia Rutledge

Next up on my Alternative and Anti-Love story list is Lost & Delirious (2001). The film was directed by  Léa Pool and written by Susan Swan, the author of the novel version, and by Judith Thompson.  I really didn’t know that the film was originally a novel before I watched it. The film was based on the novel The Wives of Bath written by Susan Swan in 1993. The leading actors in Lost & Delirious are Jessica Paré,  Piper Perabo, and Mischa Barton. I have no idea who any of those people are and I don’t think I’ve seen any of the other characters that they’ve played.

I watched the film on Netflix, so it is currently available there. I consider the movie to be an “alternative” love story, because it is the love story between two girls. I also consider it to be “anti” because you follow the story of these two girls whose relationship is hindered because of one of their parents being cruelly heterosexual-centric.

I really enjoyed the movie. For me, the plot was very gripping and kept me interested easily. The main focus of the film is about the relationship between two girls, but neither of them are the main character. The film follows Mischa Barton’s character, Mouse, and is 1st person limited. You are on the outside looking in on the relationship, but with the way it is done I frequently forgot about Mouse and was focused solely on Tori (Jessica Paré) and Paulie (Piper Perabo).

As far as the acting goes, I believe that Paré and Perabo did well, the rest of the cast, not so much. Granted, the film is a teenage, board schooling type of movie, and is the acting ever exceedingly fantastic with those? The co-stars acting doesn’t even matter much in the movie, they are mostly used to fill a room and create so sense of conflict to keep the story rolling.

The are a few cool shots in the film, but this may not be the movie for you if you’re big on artistic cinematography. I believe that there is a variety of settings in each film and I think that filmmakers did a good job of ensuring each setting had a different feeling in it. I think that is what really provoked emotion out of me, because if what was happening was sad, the setting was sad. If what was happening was intense, the setting was intense.

Although, i’m not usually the one for romantic teenage movies, I found myself really enticed in the relationship of the two girls. It was a nice break from the usual of a white, heterosexual high school couple. I have to say, this film really broke my heart a little bit. It’s really hard for me to watch two people who deeply love one another, being hindered by an outer force. It was really heart aching to see one of them fighting so hard to save the relationship and the other pushing away.

I really enjoyed this film, I’d watch it again. However, there is quite a bit of nudity and sexual actions that take place in the movie, so this is definitely not one to watch with the parents. I think this movie maybe be underrated and I would recommend it to others. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, and is not exactly a must-see. I’d say to watch it if you’re in the mood to watch a movie, but you don’t know what to watch. It turned out to be a better film than I expected. I was happily surprised that it wasn’t the superficial, puppy dog kind of love you see in most high school love films. The kind of love portrayed in the film feels real, it feels deeper than just two people who think the other is cute. It’s something different and I like that.

Overall Rating: 7/10