The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love

with Laurel Holloman, Nicole Ari Parker, Maggie Moore
Written and directed by Maria Maggenti
by Sarah Van Heuvelen

I don’t know what your high school experience was like, but I know mine just wouldn’t have been the same if a couple of rug munchers had ruled the school – but then, that was back in the ’80s when lesbos were lesbos and closets were closets. Welcome to the ’90s when a film like The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love can focus with gleeful voyeurism on the mating dance of two seventeen year old girls, Evie and Randy, who are on the cusp of full-fledged dykedom. The film doesn’t make a big deal about it, but dares to treat their lust for each other as just another love story – it’s practically Romeo and Juliet, for God’s sake. Only this time ’round, the classic love story is retooled so that two Juliets are digging each other (Romeo who?) and the world be damned.

And you know what? Two Girls in Love doesn’t seek to shock, titillate, or otherwise outrage moviegoers. Its point is simple – lesbians are people too. They’re people who get in fights with their parents, people who break dishes and yes, people who have been known to have sex on occasion.

In Two Girls, Randy and Evie do shack up, and their union results in the kind of soul-searching, thirst-quenching, transformational sex that we’re all kind of hoping to experience at least once in our lives (but not necessarily from the hands of – ewww! – another woman).

But the girls also do lots of other normal, high school, falling in love type things: Passing notes in the hall, suffering through detention, and holding themselves hostage in a motel room until their horrified parents meet their demands. The biggest of which is allowing Randy to graduate high school even though she’s flagging calculus. You know, just typical, high school stuff.

Okay, so Romeo and Juliet it’s not, but for a look at high school romance that’s both fresh and as evocative of those bygone school days as a whiff of your old gym locker, check out The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love. Films like this aren’t for baby dykes anymore.