Go Fish

Rose Troche's understanding of film language brings this film about lesbians looking for true romance up to the level of mediocrity--otherwise, it would be virtually unwatchable. Troche's eye and odd sense of what is important on the screen (the scene transitions are especially weird) transcend some horribly amateurish acting and writing. (The screenplay is by the director and her star, Guinevere Turner.) The film makes every effort to come across as a simple story with characters who just happen to be gay but is continually compromised by ponderous lesbian polemics that sap whatever sweetness the story tries to put across. Turner has a kind of toothy charm that reminds one of a more compact Geena Davis but Troche never instructs her to slow down enough so that her lines have some kind of impact. The rest of the cast seems to be doing it only as a labor of love.

I was hoping that this movie would actually be interesting. I'm used to artsy films and can usually appreciate them. However, this film was just not my cup of tea at all. First of all, the plot seemed too shallow. The main character finds love with some random woman she was set up with and there is no explanation as to how or why they fall in love. I think the problem was that Troche was trying to hit on some major lesbian issues while at the same time portraying a lesbian love story, but in the end came out too scattered and unstructured. The characters seemed way too stereotypical, almost like they had to reinforce the whole dyke image. Granted this movie was released back in 1994, I knew plenty of lesbians back then who were a lot more feminine and not as obviously gay as the characters in this film. I felt a bit annoyed that they had to sort of scream dyke so loudly by the way they dressed, talked, and wore their hair. That's not to say that I have anything against the butch image, but as a "lipstick" lesbian myself, I felt like the femmes weren't properly represented. The only things that seemed to really give the movie any actual substance were the scenes in which Evie's mother threw her out of the house after she found out she was a lesbian and also the scene in which Daria was being interrogated and jeered at by other lesbians for having sex with a male friend. Those are real issues for us today as lesbians and I liked how she touched upon them, but I felt like Troche could have done more with Daria's scene. So many lesbians out there judge their own kind too much and bisexuality has become so abhorrent in the gay community due to its current trendiness. All in all, it felt like the movie, quite literally and figuratively, was just too black and white for me. (I can disregard the bad acting as this WAS an indie film and many of the actors looked like they were real lesbians with no acting experience who were looking to do a film about their lives.) Troche seems to portray the lesbian world and life as similar to straight life and yet totally different. But it's just not that black and white. Sexuality, in my opinion, is very fluid and I felt like the theme of the movie focused too much on what a lesbian was SUPPOSED to be, feeding into too many stereotypes and clichés.

I saw this movie in the summer of 1994, as a young lesbian who was just comming out of the closet who had never had a girlfriend. I found the chemistry between Max and Ely so real, that I found myself yearning for that kind of relationship. Daria's trail was also very well done, as many lesbians do share that attitude.

In retrospect, lots of people would say go fish is a bad movie due to the bad acting and the bad script writing, but that's not the point.The movie go fish, which is the first actual lesbian film, teaches everybody about the ups and downs of every lesbian's lifestyle that most people doesn't seem to recognise in mainstream films during the 1990's and this low budget movie made by real lesbians (in a realistic documentary feel that's similar to spike lee's first movie "She's gotta have it") is very non Hollywood and is not in such total cliché of mainstream films during that decade that portray lesbian/bisexual women as serial killers (i.e. basic instinct and heavenly creatures) and that's what i like most about go fish because it's witty, romantic, and very close to the heart and although it's not the best film ever made, but who knows, a person who is a student in high school or in college might watch the movie during history/social studies class on lesbian history.

"Go Fish", at first glance, appears to have all the elements of a good dyke film; good writers, great background, and above all a rather scrumptious leading lady. So why, then, did it fail to even moisten my appetite? There was no energy in the piece. I found myself creating my own little stories in my head to keep me occupied while I watched good material being drawn out to its maximum, and therefore losing all appeal. There was simply no pace, no excitement, and it seemed to me very dated. Guin, please, drag us into the twenty-first century, I know that you are capable of it. And this time, find a gorgeous girl to do it with?

I wanted so badly for this movie to be good. But it's terrible. The acting was awful, to begin with. Max (Guinevere Turner) is the only person onscreen with any semblance of acting ability, but it's possible that I was merely distracted by her prettiness. The characters are strange and difficult to relate to, except perhaps again the central character Max. The film tries so hard to be arty and highbrow, but succeeds only in being pretentious and utterly ridiculous. Skip this one. Sigh.

Spoilers herein. I just came back from a trip visiting an artist whose specialty was lesbian art. Not making, but curating and collecting. She really showed me some stuff that blew me -- a straight guy -- away. Film for me is capable of mainlining the same sorts of effect: The ability (with a little commitment) to transport to new worlds, intensely internal, personal. So I rushed to this film. Alas, its a miss. It had some powerful images and lines, but it really would have been better, even worldclass as a photo shoot with enticing captions. The production was so unartful -- despite valiant aspirations -- that I felt embarrassed. The acting was largely night-at-the-Y. The dynamics of the camera just weren't understood. Its so strange that for some communities if you speak to them at all with honest intent, they forget all else. In a way, this film is like `Left Behind,' which fundamentalists love, but most others think is curious but fundamentally blunt and bad art. Guinevere Turner does have an endearing film presence as the focus. I have seen some of her later films and frankly didn't notice her. But here she is everything.

Even if you live in Park Slope, and your idea of a big time is a cup of herbal tea, a Sweet Honey in the Rock CD, and a curl-up with a volume of Audre Lorde, this suicide-inducing lesbian indie will probably have you craving a late Steven Seagal feature, a chili dog, and a six pack of Miller Genuine Draft. Characteristic moment: poker-faced non-actor erupts, "Hey you guys! Does our community really have to get down on an empowered woman who's in charge of her sexuality?"

This movie was somewhat interesting. The characters in it were well rounded, but the acting had a lot of room for improvement. This film revolved around dialogue and there was plenty of it. For the most part the dialogue was funny and somewhat interesting, but overall this film mostly felt like a dirty version of Sex and the City: Lesbian Edition. I did think it was interesting that the film included real depictions of lesbian women and didn't just have classically beautiful women in it pretending to be lesbians. It also wasn't afraid to show uncensored lesbian relationships, which a great number of people in 1994 would have found repulsive. The film also included a variety of shots and wasn't afraid to play around with camera angles, but this wasn't necessarily a good thing. A few shots in particular were simply annoying, for instance: the laundry room shot from the drier and the conversation between Max and her black friend in the coffee shop. The transitions in the movie also didn't seem to have much relevance to the plot of the film. Some transitions would be kids playing in the park and others would be up close images of hands—there is one exception—when Daria and one of her sex lackeys are making love it shows Evy splitting some bread in half, but other than that the transitions do not have any relevance. Overall Go Fish is not a bad movie, but it isn't a great one either. I personally would not watch it again given the opportunity.It is a somewhat interesting movie, but it leans heavily on the lesbian aspect and given that this is the twenty-first century it doesn't carry the same shock value that it did back in '94. Don't get me wrong, if the characters in this film were not lesbians it probably wouldn't be interesting at all. In fact it would be the same romantic comedy that we've all seen over one hundred times now.

While the technical quality of the movie may be way less than perfect, it was a NO budget, non-professional, low tech movie which managed to capture and gives voice to a lot of issues that face young queer women. I really identified with a lot of the women in the movie and saw many women I knew as well as the queer scene I was a part of in the early/mid nineties. There is one scene in particular where Max does a free-form thought bit in a wedding dress that I still think back to on a regular basis and which actually made me gasp the first time I saw it. Virtually all, if not all, of the actors involved (and writers and director) were first timers. Given that, and the year, I think this film deserves more credit than it has been given by a lot of the commentators on this forum.