Film Corner!

Below, the trailer for Lola Versus, the IMDb description of which is: "Dumped by her boyfriend just three weeks before their wedding, Lola enlists her close friends for a series of adventures she hopes will help her come to terms with approaching 30 as a single woman." Oof.

The tagline for this movie is not: "Can one woman discover how to be HER OWN Manic Pixie Dream Girl (at least until she finds a new dude)?" But it should be!

The poster for this film informs us it's "from the studio that brought you 500 Days of Summer," and I definitely hated that movie, so I will probably hate this one, too! Even though, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, I LOVE movies (etc.) about quirky white New Yorkers who don't know any people of color and have no time to meet new people because GROWING PAINS!

Hey, did I ever tell you how half my family is from New York City, and so I used to spend part of my summers in Queens? IT'S TRUE! And my grandfather would give me dimes to run down to the corner store on Myrtle Avenue (holla, Glendale!) to buy sweets, and I rode the subway when it was still covered in graffiti, and I splashed around in cement reservoirs at the public park on hot summer days, and I visited the high school at which my grandmother was a secretary and where my dad taught summer school some summers, and I attended Vacation Bible School at my grandmother's church, and I went for long walks with my granddad all around the neighborhood, and, sometimes, when my older cousin would visit, we'd say we were going to Forest Park to ride the carousel, but we'd really go to an arcade and talk to boys, which is where I saw a boombox, and break-dancing, and rappers, all for the first time.

And here is a True Fact: There were people of color in all of those places, and they were not background.

So when people tell stories (SO MANY STORIES) about New York City, and those stories are just full to fuck of white people (SO MANY WHITE PEOPLE), that story is lie. Or it is a story of privilege. Usually both.

ANYWAY!


Music that sounds vaguely Motown-y, but is actually by a white NYC indie band, obviously. Scenes of New York, by which I mean buildings. Cut to Lola, a young thin white blonde woman, trying on wedding dresses with her best female friend, a young thin white brunette woman, and her best male friend, a young thin white dark-haired man, who may or may not be gay and sassy? (TBD.) "Dude!" Male Friend says to the blushing bride. "You look incredible!" Female Friend asks, "Are you trying to take maid of honor from me?" He responds, "I feel like Rupert Everett." Yiiiiikes. "Don't we all?" says Female Friend. Whut. "It's a wedding dress! It's a wedding dress!" Lola exclaims, pumping her fists.

Cut to Lola coming home to her lovely flat, carrying wedding flowers, where her fiancee, Holder from The Killing, is sitting stony-faced on their leather sofa. "Honey, you're gonna die when you see these flowers!" she exclaims. He looks at her with I'mma-barf face. "Honey, what's up—did you have a stroke?" she asks. "I don't think I can do this," Holder tells her. No doi he can't. He needs to find Rosie Lawson's murderer already. Lola looks stricken. Happy music ENDS!

Cut to Lola looking sad and confused, while working out, while wandering the streets, and while lying in bed, stroking the empty pillow beside her where Holder's head used to be. "I feel like everyone saw it coming but me," she says. Male Friend tells her, "Nobody saw it. It was like lightning." Is that a good analogy? Because lightning is usually preceded by thunder. Or is it succeeded? Either way, it's part of a goddamn storm. I'm just saying.

Lola is "shattered." And so she's "power-eating." Scenes of Lola eating junk food. Now we have evidence of what a tragedy this really is. I didn't feel that terrible until I was reminded of the possibility that SHE COULD GAIN WEIGHT HOLY SHIT!

Female Friend urges her to get out there and date and let men put their dicks in her. Ha ha just kidding. She doesn't say that. She actually says "let them ride your pony." Which is even worse.

Lola eats chips. Lola has dinner with some dude. He designs prisons and has a big dick because he was "an incubator baby." Is that a thing? Having a big dick because you were in an incubator? Lola looks dubious. I consider that this is the material they decided to put in the trailer.

Cut to Lola saying goodbye to Incubator Dick on the sidewalk the next morning. He is on rollerblades. Male Friend is there. She says, in voiceover: "I think men are always looking for someone better, and women are just looking for whatever works." (Yuck, that sounds horrible. Also false.) She uncomfortably kisses Incubator Dick before he rollerblades away, saying, "Have a blessed day!" Male Friend asks her, "Did you just have sex with that rollerblader?"

Cut to Female Friend telling Lola that "being single builds character." Cut to Female Friend falling on her face. Cut to Lola on a laptop asking Female Friend: "Is your Match.com log-in still LetMeBeYourHole?" Female Friend replies, "LetMeBeYourHole1. It was taken." Ooooooooof.

Cut to Lola on a psychologist's couch, saying, "I'm constantly obsessing about everything—food, boys." That's pretty much everything! Lola drinks. Lola clings to a stripper pole at a club and has to be dragged off by a large black man. Lola tells her mother (Debra Winger no!) that being obsessed with Cinderella messes all little girls up because "we get obsessed with shoes." Cut to Lola breaking a heel and falling.

Cut to Lola doing some treatment where an older white man hits her with branches while telling her to release her emotions, then pours a bucket of water on her head. She screams. The end.

Via MaryAnn, who says: "Oh, wow. It's a movie about a woman who does nothing but obsess over food and romance and shoes. I've never seen anything like this before. I cannot wait to see what astonishing insights into the female psyche I will discover here." LOL!

Whooooooopsing to a theater near you soon.