most people would say kissng jessica stein is a lesbian version of annie hall, which is about an intelligent jewish woman's search of love and her multi-faceted viewpoints of life in new york. but to me, it's NOT. honestly, i was not interested in this picture by a look at its poster, which seems like some chic-flick
with cute title until one night i flipped to it on tv and watched along. then i found it is not really a chic flick. the two female leads look like real people around you, not drop-dead gorgeous like those delicious lipstick lesbians aestehticized by underground pop-culture in movies directed by david lynch or atom egoyan who seems to have an obssession with beautiful puss suddenly going gay.
the movie's main message is simple, consider it as some thesis statement, it would be: is there any chance that a metropolitan heterosexual single woman finds love in her same sex if the men all wind up being so un-satisfactory? jessica stein, a jewish woman who works as a copy-editor in new york, is so frustrated by datings because men around her don't seem to be that thrilling or she has too many idiocyncratic principles of her own about datings. (woman could name lists of reasons why men become such a turn-off..let's skip that cliche)...un-expectedly, she answers the classified ad on the newspaper from a lesbian who wishes to recruit a date. then these two meet and find each other quite desirable and intellectually stimulating. so the lesbian tries to convince jessian stein into engaging in the lesbian lovemaking step by step. jessica lets her do it because everything about this woman is alluring except the fact she's also a woman.
the movie tries to imbue a realistic air despite it still has one of those liberal-minded naivete from time to time. it features the parts how jessica stein has a hard time admitting to everyone and her family that the person who grants her such enormous happiness is also a woman, and the moment she holds her tears in front of her mom about this episode of her life is quite genuine. the movie emphasizes the emotional obstacle for jessica stein to confess her "temporal homosexuality" and as a matter of fact, she's also confined in her conservative mindset about gays. but eventually her family and friends accept this new change in her. (which seems quite utopic for the moment)
the merit about this picture is its honest answer to this queer experiement of heterosexual metropolitan woman: yes, you might seek your happiness from another woman, who doesn't have all the drawbacks of the men you used to date, but life won't be happy ever after just like that. i suppose, i was wrong in the first paragraph, yes, it is a chick flick about woman looking for love, but it chooses to be honest without granting a user-frriendly, surgar-coated, falsified ending like most chick flicks. the purpose of this picture is to state the queer space is a potential utopia for heterosexual woman who is willing to cross the line for new things (let's say, banging in the other way..) just like that pop song of katy perry's, "i kiss a girl", but after you kiss a girl, then what? the girl you kiss might as well ditch you aside more violently than any depressing man who has given you a hard time.
the movie ends with their relationship being dissolved due to the lack of sex, thus the lesbian dumps her under the reason that they behave like roommates who are nice to each other and she wants her romance with the whole "package" (which means she cannot go on without passionate sex)...so the picture finishes as two of them drinking coffee, smiling like a pair of good friends, and jessica stein is still single. at least, happily, self-sufficiently single.
February 10, 2010
Top Critic
