Director: Sandra Goldbacher
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 2.0
Very close friends growing up in the U.K. - more-or-less reserved Holly (Michelle Williams) and extroverted Marina (Anna Friel) - begin by playing backyard games and progress within a short period of time to doing heroin and engaging in casual sex ... and remain closely linked together for decades. The trouble I found with this is that I never found the strains that exist between the Marina-Holly crypto-queer relationship to be that great - it isn't uncommon for girls to compete with each other for the same men (the two share the same lover at one point in the form of an ethically challenged college professor played by Kyle MacLachlan), and if the difficulties that exist between them are so pronounced, why didn't Holly cut off the 'friendship' earlier? (It appears as if their 'union,' according to this movie, is based solely on their relations with men.) When the Holly character (eventually) gets fed up with the Marina character's emotional instability, promiscuity (60+ dudes by the time you're 30?) and control issues - she pointedly declares they need a "divorce," implying they were psychically married - it's not a matter of realizing this person is a problem (which was clear eons ago) it's realizing the movie needs some kind of closure.
