BY NATASIA LANGFELDER
Lesbian.com
You should probably watch this movie.
“Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?” was written, directed by and stars the multi-talented Anna Margarita Abelo. Abelo plays Anna, a down-on-her-luck filmmaker, who just turned 40. Anna doesn’t have a girlfriend, a job, she lives in a friend’s garage and she has never achieved her dream of making a full-length film.
Although she has plenty of reasons to want to change her life, she’s pushed out of her inertia when she meets Katia (Janina Gavankar) aka Papi from “The L Word.” Katia is mesmerizing despite being outfitted in a hipster-y bowler hat for basically the entire movie.
“Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf” could have been just one long close up of Gavankar’s face and I’m pretty sure everyone would have been happy with it.
So smart, beautiful Katia is also an actress. She’s convinced of Anna’s genius after seeing one of her short films and is all “you must make a movie.” This is what finally gives Anna the motivation to get herself together and make a full-length movie. She writes the movie, “I am Afraid of Vagina Wolf,” an all female adaptation of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe,” in a night and starts holding auditions for free labor the next day.
Julia (Agnes Olech) is an experienced production assistant who is immediately drawn to Anna. However, Anna is too obsessed with Katia to notice the talented, sexy woman who is throwing herself at her.
Anna recruits her best friend, Penelope (Guinevere Turner), to star as “Martha” and their charmingly ditzy friend, Chloe, to play “Angel Tits.” Anna herself plays Georgie and Katia plays “The Stud.”
Long story short, hilarity ensues and Anna is forced to take a hard look at the decisions she’s made in her life that have led her to where she is now and how she has treated the people in her life who love her. It is something we should all do more often, no matter where we are in life.
The best part about this movie is that there are no typical lesbian cliches. As much as we all love a good “coming out” story, all the characters here already know their sexual orientation. It’s a story about a group of queer women who are doing something besides coming out or worrying about how to tell their parents/friends/family/goldfish that they are lesbians and it’s incredibly refreshing. I mean, we do other things besides coming out. We go to work and have friendships and hobbies and passions and romance and “Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf” reflects that.
The acting is also superb with each actress completely inhabiting the body of the character she is supposed to play. Guinevere Turner, of course, steals the show with her larger-than-life screen presence and hotness. Actress Carrie Preston, as Chloe, does a great job delivering laugh-out-loud one liners to break up the tension in the more serious scenes. Also, for “The L Word” fans (and who isn’t?) there’s an adorable Papi and Gabby reunion! Remember when we last saw them together? Having sex and eating sandwiches and throwing digs at Alice? Good times.
The messaging of the movie- trust people to love you for who you are is uplifting.
Spoiler Alert: none of the lesbians die in this movie. It’s truly a brave new world.
However, the movie isn’t perfect. It can be a little confusing to anyone who hasn’t seen Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton taking turns chewing the scenery in the film, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?” You absolutely must watch that movie first in order to appreciate all the layers of disfunction and humor in “Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?”
Another problem in the movie is the age difference between the main character and her love interests. The movie delivers a message that commercial success and conventional beauty don’t mean as much as what is on the inside. Which is great. And the love interests in the movie, Katia and Julia both have brains. However, they also both look like Victoria Secret models. Like, no joke — you will spend the movie waiting for wings to pop out of Julia’s back. Anna is significantly older than both her love interests and doesn’t have any chemistry with either. She does have amazing chemistry with her BFF Penelope, who she turned down years ago. Anna doesn’t display enough of her good qualities early enough in the film to earn Julia’s crush. And the only age appropriate love interest is summarily dismissed. It’s problematic and too Hollywood, where the schlubby guy who messes everything up still ends up with the supermodel.
Despite those detractions, “Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf” is a great watch. So invite over all the homos you know and break out the popcorn. Watch now on Lesbian.com.
