Diagnosis of this second specimen from writer-director John Sayles is much the same as for Return of the Secaucas Seven. The facile, fast-shuffle dialogue is very much at odds with the shoddy mise-en-scène, and very much outside the capabilities of the amateurish cast. The best delivery of a line (and perhaps best line, too) is a little girl's sullen "No," in answer to her father's question: "Theda" -- she is named after Theda Bara; her brother is named Spencer, after Tracy; her father, of course, is a film buff -- "do you know what we're talking about?" What they're talking about is the lesbian attachment of a university faculty wife to her night-school Child Psychology teacher, a short-haired Joanne Woodward lookalike. The subject matter is quite modish; the attitude about it somewhat less so, with the motivation for lesbianism traced directly to the horridness of the husband. Does Sayles think he is being magnanimous by dumping the burden on his own sex? With Linda Griffiths and Jane Hallaren. (1983) — Duncan Shepherd
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