Lost & Delirious: Movie, DVD Review

4/01/2008 Posted by Admin

A fitting title

Directed by Lea Pool, written by Judith Thompson, based on the novel "The Wives of Bath" by Susan Swan, 100 minutes, not rated.

(Originally published 2001)

Lea Pool's coming-of-age movie, "Lost & Delirious," proves it isn't easy being young and in love, but then it also proves it isn't easy making a movie about the young and in love. Taking a cue from some teen romances, the film underscores the fact that if one's hormones aren't held in check, all can be lost to melodrama.

To a point, Pool's film is a sincere look at adolescence and adolescent love that has guts. The problem is that, by the final reel, it's wearing so much of its guts on its sleeve, some might want to look away.

Based on Susan Swan's novel, "The Wives of Bath," the film follows Mary Bradford (Mischa Barton), a quiet girl nicknamed Mouse who's recently been shipped to a Montreal boarding school by her indifferent father and his breezy new wife.

At school, Mouse is faced with a new life, something she wasn't exactly seeking ("I felt like a tiny gray mouse heading straight for the mouth of a cat"), but things eventually look up when she meets her roommates Tory (Jessica Pare) and Paulie (Piper Perabo), a fun couple who surprise Mary by revealing they really are a couple.

As Tory and Paulie explore the boundaries of their lesbian relationship, which smashes apart when Tory's sister catches them together in bed, Mary is forced to face the boundaries of her own life--and question how she herself responds to the world.

"Lost & Delirious" wouldn't be nearly as affecting if it weren't for the conviction of its cast; Perabo, in particular, has some terrific moments when Pool isn't insisting that she overact, and Barton grounds the film's overblown midsection and ending with an economy of style that softens the increasingly hysterical mood. But Judith Thompson's script, which initially skirts a number of cliches and seems so promising, inexplicably turns sour.

Indeed, as the nearly destroyed Paulie finds herself shrieking Shakespeare's sonnets while fencing with Tory's male suitors, the film leaves all sense of reality behind--and dissolves into a muddy puddle of camp.

Grade: C-