Life Partners (2014)
Directed by Susanna Fogel
Written Joni Lefkowitz, Susanna Fogel
Starring Gillian Jacobs, Adam Brody, Leighton Meester, Greer Grammer, Gabourey Sidibe
Release Date December 5th, 2014
Published December 25th, 2014
Making room in life for our people's people is not an easy thing. No man has lived without the experience of the girlfriend or even wife of the long time friend who's intrusion into their life is among the most significant disruptions in their life. When my best friend got married he was already moved away and living apart from me which actually made the transition in our lives easier. His wife and I are Facebook friends and get along splendidly on holidays.
Other friends have married and the transition has been bumpy, awkward and on more than one occasion the friendship simply vanished. The thoughtful, funny new movie "Life Partners" is about a significant life-interruptus moment for a pair of female friends whose co-dependency was a defining trait.
Sasha (Leighton Meester) and Paige (Gillian Jacobs) are the kind of friends who are announced as one person upon their arrival, as if Sasha's last name were And-Paige. They have jokes so deeply inside that to introduce them to others is to mystify them further. Take their obsession with the pop institution known as "Top Model." I doubt 'Model' host Tyra Banks could keep up with the stream of giggling asides Sasha and Paige cram into just a couple of scenes.
So, when Paige meets and hits it off with Tim (Adam Brody) we know Sasha is about to take a serious loss. Tim is affable and has a good map for Paige's weirdness in the same way Sasha does; turning them, naturally, into competitors for Paige's attention. Of course, Tim is going to win; the plot has kicked in before the end of the first act and we know that the subject of the film is how we deal with our friend's new friends. How Sasha comes to cope with Tim while forging her own new bonds and longing for her bond with Paige is how the story will play out.
That Sasha also happens to be a lesbian is surprisingly unimportant. Just ten years ago a filmmaker would be forced by convention to play on a secret longing Sasha has for her best friend to also become her lover. Here however, we have not a boundary breaking movie but rather a movie that is knowledgeable enough and modern enough not to bother with such old school thinking. Sure, it comes up, but only in a bitter, thoughtless tirade from an angry supporting player.
No, director and co-writer Susanna Fogel is forward thinking enough not to waste time with the sexual politics and focus on two friends growing up, growing apart and growing together again. Maturity comes from learning that you aren't the center of everyone's world and that your people's people are also the star of their own story and not a supporting player for your wants and needs. It's only when Sasha stops seeing Tim as the villain in her story that she can mature and move on and make her way forward with Paige as two adult friends.
I've been waiting for a movie like this for a long time. I've often wondered when someone might tell a story about friends and friends of friends that isn't some vacuous series of dinner party conversations or some trifling mumblecore B.S masquerading hipster ideas of friendship as deep insights. "Life Partners" is a movie for people struggling to grow up and then finally, actually growing the fuck up. What a refreshing notion.
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