Movie Review: “Princess Cyd”’s Summer Love
This is part five 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: Room In Rome
Week 5: Princess Cyd, 2017. Dir. Stephen Cone.
Netflix Synopsis: A teenager moves to Chicago for the summer and finds a poignant mentor in her aunt and a sweet love interest in a girl who works in the neighborhood.
It’s unclear where to start when talking about Princess Cyd. Writer and director Steven Cone’s film is at times completely enrapturing and at others lackluster. It both leans on stereotypes and boldly balks against them. It is entirely predictable yet quite unexpected.
Cyd follows teenager Cydney from North Carolina to her aunt’s home in Chicago for the summer. Suggested by her dad, the trip is an opportunity to broaden her horizons and get time away from her depressing single parent household. Her aunt Miranda still lives in her own childhood home, and it will be nice for Cyd to see where her mom grew up.
Princess Cyd is almost the antithesis of melodrama. It puts together a string of fragments and snapshots of the titular character’s summer with the seemingly desired effect of a quasi-cinéma vérité. There isn’t any grand excitement until suddenly there is; every moment is trying to be lived, not made. And for the most part it does feel like you’re watching someone’s life, albeit one that’s a little too perfect. Cyd makes mistakes, and conflicts do exist, but they’re too exacted to feel genuine. Nothing is actually messy enough to resonate fully, and the mess that does exist feels intentional and chosen.
The film’s insistence on being real is its biggest asset and also its biggest flaw. There is an artificial authenticity that bleeds throughout the scenes — a diluted version of reality that leaves something to be desired. Cyd’s love interest Katie is a barista at the local coffee shop who says things like, “You play soccer? That’s hot,” and who invites Cyd into her room within an hour of meeting her and begins to undress, telling her, “Don’t look! Just kidding. You can look if you want to”. It’s surprising that she didn’t wink as she said it.
Cyd tackles big topics in its 96 minutes: religion, sex, death, love, but it only touches on them. Cyd asks Miranda, a novelist whose work focuses on religious themes, if she thinks they’ll really see her mom again. She asks Miranda about her desire to have sex with Katie, how to do it right, and what Miranda thinks of sex. Miranda has a friendship with a male coworker/mentee that feels as though it might lead somewhere. It never does, which is pretty much a recurring feeling of the entire movie. Cyd frequently inches you to the top of the rollercoaster without ever letting you reach the apex of the experience. It has the potential to be wonderful. It isn’t quite.
In short, Princess Cyd is a pleasant film. It is a queer coming of age story that does not belabor the coming out of it all. It features a female lead who is comfortable in — if not brazen about — herself and her desires. It proudly explores female sexuality and experimentation. There is ultimately very little tangible conflict present in this film, which can leave it feeling flat. But when almost every other queer story has its fair share of turmoil and angst, I suppose uneventful isn’t quite a bad thing.
FINAL TALLY
Gays Buried: None
Queer Director: Yes
Queer Writer: Yes
Queer Actor(s): Yes
Watch Princess Cyd
Next week’s movie: Kiss Me (Kyss Mig)
