So, I watched ‘If These Walls Could Talk 2′ for the first time last night. The movie was released in the UK in November 2000 – better late than never, right?
‘If These Walls Could Talk 2′ is probably the most realistic portrayal of the development of lesbian identity I have ever seen. The film is split into three segments, much like the previous installment, ‘If These Walls Could Talk’, which documented the lives of different women in different decades, who all lived in the same house. [keep reading to find a hilarious cameo by DeGeneres!]
The first story takes place in 1961, where an elderly couple are shown to be enjoying their retirement in the home they shared together. Written beautifully by Jane Anderson and Sylvia Sichel, the characters of Abby and Edith (played by Marian Seldes and Vanessa Redgrave) are obviously very happy in their relationship with one another. Every night while Abby tends to the birdhouse in the back garden, Edith neatly arranges her pyjamas at the bottom of the bed and waits for her to come upstairs. But one night their perfect lives are put to an unbearable end when Abby falls whilst feeding the birds and suffers a stroke on the back lawn. Now Edith is forced to face the harsh realities of not only living as a lesbian in the 60s, but living without the person she loved most in the world. Edith disintegrates slowly under the pains of denial and injustice as she is denied access to her loved ones death bed and rights to the home they built together. This is a truly heartbreaking story – but such a prominent reminder of how much society has progressed in the last forty years.
The second segment of the film concerns a group of college girls and their juvenile grasp on feminism in the early 70s. Actress Michelle Williams plays the character of Linda, a lost soul looking for love. When she meets Amy (played by actress Chloe Sevigny) in a bar, she is forced to address her own prejudices and learns to love women for who they are and not what they choose to wear to reaffirm their identity. Despite irritating connotations of adolescent ignorance, this section portrays a warming story of how one woman’s life is changed for the better, and reflects the progression of feminism nicely.
Watch the amusing third segment right now!!
The final segment of the movie follows the lives of Fran (Sharon Stone) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres), a modern day lesbian couple trying to start a family. It deals with their desire to create a child that belongs soley to them, and primarily focuses on Kal’s worries and feelings of inadequacies that she cannot give her partner a baby. They search through various methods of sperm donation and fertility, and live through an ordeal of trying, waiting and trying again. It touches upon issues of parental contact when they consider using a donor they know, and brings many contemporary issues to light in a very humerous manner (another wonderful cameo from DeGeneres!).
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