Breaking the Girls

Here's a movie that is at cross-purposes: it's meant to be one of those movies that you see on Cinemax late at night, with two hot girls making out. But the problem is, there is no nudity, and we get the absurd situation where women are clutching sheets to their bodies when they sit up. If you're going to make a movie like this, go for the gold. Plus, the movie, on its own merits, is bad, but that's to be expected.

"Directed" by Jamie Babbit, Breaking the Girls (the title makes no sense) is essentially the lesbian version of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Law student Sara (Agnes Bruckner, looking like the poor man's Katherine Heigl) has had a run of bad luck, mostly caused by the snooty Shanna Collins. She meets Alex (Madeline Zima) in a bar. Alex is a rich party-girl and a lesbian, who takes a shine to Bruckner. After she gets Bruckner interested in Sapphic romance, she suggests that Bruckner kill her nemesis, her stepmother (Katherine Levering) and Alex will kill Collins. Bruckner thinks nothing of it until Collins ends up dead in a swimming pool.

Of course this film has none of Hitchcock's skill. The script bends over backwards to provide twists--just who is playing who? When I thought it was over there was one more twist, and while it was clever it forgot to actually make sense in the beginning.

There is a lot of PG sex, as I said, which must have been a marketing decision, as anyone who has seen Californication knows that Zima has been gloriously nude before. She and Bruckner are not bad, but the film is so ridiculous that they are their nice bodies can't keep it afloat.

Also, why are movie lesbians usually depicted as evil, back-stabbing bitches?