Movie Review: “A Perfect Ending” Is Far From Perfect
This is part three of a series in which I will review all of the lesbian movies on Netflix. Even though most if not all of them have been heavily reviewed already, there are many that I haven’t watched. Join me as we go on this journey together. It’ll be super gay at best, unintentionally homophobic at worst, and cringeworthy almost always. | Last Week’s Movie: Below Her Mouth
Week 3: A Perfect Ending, 2012. Dir. Nicole Conn.
Netflix Synopsis: After confessing an unusual secret, a repressed wife — prompted by her friends — decides to explore her sexuality with a high-priced call girl.
The first shot of A Perfect Ending is out of focus and not visually appealing. It is a small, blue blur in the corner of the frame, and only after a few more shots of a few more blurs does it become clear that it’s a blot of ink. It is unclear why this opens the film, as the shots that follow are close-up inserts of fences, statues, and fountains that rack focus from one seemingly insignificant part of each structure to another. The images don’t appear to relate, and the same goes for the weirdly haunting piano music that underscores the montage. Why is that there? Why did they make that choice? You will ask yourself both of these questions over and over during the two hours of your life that this movie takes up.
Written and directed by Nicole Conn, A Perfect Ending is the opposite of perfect. It is so profoundly flawed that it’s barely coherent, and it is confounding and sad that a queer woman is responsible for this movie. Why, you ask? Let me count the ways.
The first line belongs to a man. The first person we see is a man. The first three sex scenes are heterosexual. The supporting female characters have as much development and backstory as the string cheese I ate last week. The gay people don’t have a happy ending. I could go on, but I should maintain at least some element of mystery to the movie lest you are of the masochistic sort and feel the need to watch it.
Though it takes about twenty minutes to learn this, A Perfect Ending is about a wealthy blonde woman (Barbara Niven) who is unhappy in her marriage to businessman Mason. She has never had an orgasm, and with the help of her lesbian friends, she hires a call girl (Jessica Clark) to help her in her quest to know “what passion is” and “what an orgasm feels like.” After three failed endeavors to reach these goals, call girl Paris finally kisses her. They have sex. We learn that Wealthy Blonde Woman’s name is Rebecca. And only because Paris shouldn’t call her “Mrs. White.”
Yes, it took twenty-seven minutes to learn the protagonist’s name. Yes, we learned her husband and children’s names well before hers. But, given that it takes until about midway through act two for any real plot to occur, I suppose a half hour isn’t that long of a wait. Not shortly after both protagonists are identified, they fall in love, one of them dies, and one of them paints a terrible commemorative painting of the other entitled “Le Petit Mort.” Get it? Anyway, while all this is happening, the husband continues to be an alcoholic and maybe a sexual predator, the son gets engaged to a cartoon of a woman, and Paris is really artistically stuck because, we learn through flashbacks, she accidentally killed her boyfriend some time ago. That’s really psychologically taxing, guys!
The stories in A Perfect Ending are as unconnected and illogical as its creative choices. Every transition between scenes is either a sitcom-style fade out or a series of extreme close-ups on inanimate objects that are in the upcoming scene. Some are so close up that it takes a moment to realize what they are; there’s one that is still a bit unclear, even after rewinding three times. The often bizarre editing includes jump cuts that give the impression of a blooper reel more than a serious film. But the worst is the score. There is rarely a moment without music, and there is rarely a moment that the music feels appropriate. What sounds like horror movie music, utterly incongruous with the lighting and directing, underscores most of the scenes.
The most realistic part of this movie is that the straight woman has never had an orgasm, and the lesbians teach her how to have one. That shred of realism is quickly lost when she actually has the orgasm, which is so prolonged it is… let’s call it cinematic. Although, in the movie’s defense, if you hadn’t had an orgasm in 50–60 years, your first one would probably leave you feeling pretty dramatic, too.
A Perfect Ending is not a good movie. It regurgitates the same LGBT tropes that have existed in film for decades, only it does so badly. The only good part about it is Morgan Fairchild, but her character is terribly written and uses actual barbie dolls to represent human call girls. The husband also at one point calls a Korean man a ch*nk. That’s not related to Morgan Fairchild or the majority of the movie. I just needed to make sure you all know.
Do yourself a favor and skip this one.
FINAL TALLY
Gays Buried: Yes
Queer Director: Yes
Queer Writer: Yes
Queer Actor(s):Yes
Watch A Perfect Ending
Next week’s movie: Room In Rome
