GO FISH
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This halting and spotty first production for director Rose Troche is the story of two very dissimilar lesbians who finally fall in love after much effort by friends. The portrait of a lesbian subculture is not always flattering and often not even very interesting, but there are moments of clever wit. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).
GO FISH is the long, slow story of the meeting, slow romance, and eventually getting together of two lesbians. One is the attractive and energetic Max (played by Guinevere Turner); the other is the more introspective and almost masculine Ely (V. S. Brodie). They seem mismatched in looks, in tastes, and in temperaments. But their friends are determined to bring them together.
Along the way we get a look at their lives and the lives of their circle of friends in the lesbian sub-culture. Superficially the women in this small circle are witty and affable, in some ways like the menin LONGTIME COMPANION. But as time wears on they appear to have less and less in their lives beyond tracking who in their group is sleeping with whom. The lesbians are shown to be aimless and self-absorbed and fixated on the sex-lives of themselves and their friends. Just occasionally there is an on-target piece of sly if self-deprecating wit, like a minutes-long conversation on what is just the perfect anatomical euphemism to replace "honey-pot." This neuron-numbing conversation is both exasperating and funny, much like some of the writing in THIS IS SPINAL TAP or FEAR OF A BLACK HAT. Another pointed sequence shows the women who daily had been the objects of bigotry bringing the same bigotry to bear on one of their numbers who had experimented with bisexuality. With similar intolerance, Max's first reaction to Ely is insulting rejection simply because Ely is unattractive.
Perhaps part of the inspiration for this film was SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT, though Rose Troche simply does not move the plot along and does not engage the viewer nearly as well as Spike Lee does. This is a first film for director Troche who co-produced, co-authored with actress Turner. In many ways the unevenness of the production betrays Troche's inexperience. The cinematography is crude and in black and white to save costs. Acting is very often at the high-school play level. The film is salted with odd visual images, apparently symbolic but usually obscure or perhaps meaningless. A device that is perhaps over-used to give us the thought of the characters is to have them lie on the floor head-to-head and discuss their innermost thoughts. It is a crude device, albeit occasionally useful to the script. In Spike Lee's first film he had characters talking directly to the camera as if being interviewed and he used it for much the same purpose.
Early in the film, one of the characters complains about "touchy- feely, soft-focus, sisters-of-the-woodlands" sort of lesbian films and this is clearly intended to be an alternative. Whether it is intended to be as self-critical of the urban lesbian subculture is questionable. But even at its short length much of this film drags and is in need of a tuning. I rate this on a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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