The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995) from Tuna

The Incredibly True Adventure of 2 Girls in Love (1995) is a coming of age romantic comedy about two High School seniors who fall in love. One is white, has very little money, works in a filling station after work, likes classic rock, and doesn't do well in school. The other is black, wealthy, spoiled and privileged. Pretty standard stuff, except that they are both girls.

Laurel Holloman is out, lives with her butch aunt, her aunts girlfriend, and an ex of her aunt. Nicole Parker lives with her upper class mother, and is one of the in crowd at school. They meet at the gas station, then again in the girls room at school. Eventually, they managed to progress from friends to sweethearts to lovers.

This was the first effort from Maria Maggenti, and remains her only feature as director. According to her feature length commentary, much of the story was autobiographical, and she dedicated the movie to her first girlfriend.
It was made for a minuscule $65K. It was shot on 16 mm and edited using an old fashioned cut-and-splice technique with no effects at all. The film looks like it was well shot on 35mm, and the editing, despite the fact that they could afford the time or money for coverage and establishing shots, made it a very watchable film.

NUDITY REPORT

During the climactic love scene, Holloman and Parker show their breasts.

The entire film worked for me, partly because I could relate to most of the elements of young first love, but mainly because of a great job by the two talented actresses, and amazingly good production value, given the non-existent budget. This is a strong C.

The Critics Vote ...

  • Super-panel consensus: two and a half stars. James Berardinelli 2.5/4, Roger Ebert 3/4.

The People Vote ...

  • It grossed two million dollars, but was quite profitavble, having been made on a shoestring budget.
The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a C. Respectable coming-of-age drama.

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