French Canadian director Lea Pool makes her directorial debut with "Lost and Delirious," a cinematic interpretation of Susan Swan's novel "The Wives of Bath." The film, which takes an admirable stab at investigating loyalty and friendship among teenage girls, sadly sinks beneath the weight of its own earnesty and melodrama.
The film opens with Mary "Mouse" Bedford sitting in the back seat as her father and stepmother are driving her to her new boarding school. Things haven't been the same for Mouse since her mother died of cancer three years before and her stepmother entered her life.
At school she quickly becomes part of the intimate world of her roommates: the adopted, tough-girl Paulie, who is hoping to be reunited with her birth mother and Tory, who is a slave to her conservative parents' expectations. These expectations certainly don't include her daughter being romantically linked with another girl, her roommate Paulie.
The discovery of their affair has different effects on Paulie and Tory. Paulie seems to become defiant and has no shame about expressing her love in public, but Tory reacts by attemtping to prove her "normality" by attempting to end her relationship with Paulie and by taking up with a male admirer from the nearby boys' boarding school.
Various subplots explore Paulie's obsession with an injured raptor she discovers while jogging in the woods and Mouse's relationship with her father and her friendship -- almost completely unexplored by the director -- with the school gardener.
The problem with the film is not it's premise, but rather the fact that the story moves along exactly as the viewer expects. It's no fun watching a movie unfold when you can reliably predict the next scene.
While each of the three main characters get a moment or two to shine, each is usually bound and gagged by tepid dialogue and the whole thing ends up feeling like an Afterschool Special.
While we are expected to be moved by the relationships among these girls, haunted by Paulie's affection for her adopted pet bird and inspired by Mouse's relationship with the sage gardener, it's hard to muster any of those feelings. All we really feel is disappointment at squandered potential and the painful pace.
While Jessica Pare and Mischa Barton, who play Tory and Mouse, respectively, give it the old college try, it is Piper Perabo whose dark, troubled and defiant demeanor shines brightest.
Grade: C
"Lost and Delirious" opens Fri., Aug. 3 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
