Lola Versus
by Josh Bostic
Lola is a typical late-20s female living idyllically in Manhattan. She’s in love and about to get married until he decides he’s better off without. This is a compelling premise for what could be a great story and was setup beautifully – instead of Luke, her fiancé, telling her that he can’t continue, we get a shot of him looking empty, followed by a title sequence, followed by Lola crying on the toilet. Nice.
Next, we embark on a journey with Lola and her friends Alice and Henry as she attempts to recover from love lost. Alice wants her to get back out there and start having sex, medicine that her slightly off-kilter parents support, and she decides that sleeping with Henry, whom Alice houses a not-so-secret crush for, is the best choice. Don’t worry – she’ll screw this up too by sleeping with “Monster Dick Nick”. When Henry discovers this, Lola sums herself up in one line: “I’m slutty, but I’m a good person!” I think that Lola is a good person, and Greta Gershwin makes her unbelievably likable from the first frame.
Quirks for the sake of quirks never make for a good film, and this story walks that line like a tightrope artist that skipped a few training sessions. Alice is a borderline wit-firing machine and Lola’s “black friend”, played by Jay Pharaoh, is an inversely-flat character – shame, his talent is really wasted here. Most of the other characters are believable and real, and we can understand why and how Lola interacts with them.
Lola eventually has a dead heat brawl with Luke, Alice and Henry and effectively ruins her relationship with each of them at a party. This is followed by a lonely night of drunken revelry, with zero consequences for her bizarre actions, and an immediate and unexplained reversal of her previous attitude of blaming others for her feelings. This is where Lola Versus completely falls apart and loses all credibility – nothing allows for Lola to change, she just does. If only any of my exes would have the same instantaneous change of heart, the world would be a much brighter place.
Silence is a key theme to the dissertation that Lola writes. It is introduced in a way that makes us believe this will be a key thematic element to the story, yet it is never taken advantage of. Still, I found myself laughing at times and enjoying the journey that Lola takes on. Perhaps, in part, because I can understand her character and I know what it is like to suffer through the loss of a relationship previously thought permanent and invincible. She makes some crazy decisions, but somehow they are all believable. I only wish that I could understand what made her get out of her funk. It wasn’t the silence, but it should have been.
Eventually: Check this out when you’re game for some light fare that still leaves you somewhat satisfied
Adverb the Noun 