Go Fish (1994)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

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 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.

These women, though similar to the "Dykes To Watch Out For" comic characters, are incredibly realistic in their interactions, activities and dress patterns/self presentation. There is, after all, a reason that DTWOF is a hugely popular lesbian comic strip. The characters in "Go Fish" are modeled after real lesbians, not Hollywood creations. You get the sense that part of the film is scripted, and other parts are ad-libbed. I watched this movie (again and again) and thought THESE ARE DYKES! This is NOT a Hollywood flick with shiny Hollywood glitz gals and high budget special effects. This film is RAW, and will appeal to lesbians and independent film lovers. Warning: if you thought "Bound" was the quintessential lesbian flick, you will NOT like "Go Fish".

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?"