O'course, StinkyLu's resolution received a nearly immediate test with the deeply sad news of the untimely passing of playwright Wendy Wassertstein. (How to do a really quick Bad MOVIE Tribute for a playwright? And a playwright whose work StinkyLu often finds -- well, shouldn't speak ill of the departed, eh. But how?!?)
Well, LaWendy did pen the screenplay of a really horrible/delish movie: The Object of My Affection. A masterwork of cinematic fauxmosexuality, the flick makes a bittersweet romantic comedy out of the loving, devoted friendship between its two principal characters, an unlucky but lovely girl and her sweet silly and sexy gay best friend. Produced in the immediately pre-Will&Grace era (Wasserstein herself is often theorized as a prototype for Grace in same), Wasserstein's adapted screenplay for The Object of My Affection -- Criticlasm will tell you most emphatically that LaWendy got the book all wrong -- is full of not-quite-genuine characters who pepper the most mundane conversation with astonishing wit. Can be really funny, really. And somehow, as with all her work, Wasserstein's characters in The Object of My Affection become -- in the hands of the right actors -- exceptionally, indelibly, infuriatingly ingratiating. StinkyLulu never really likes -- and rarely if ever believes -- Wasserstein characters... But, somehow, dagnabbit, Wasserstein's characters somehow insinuate themselves indelibly into StinkyLulu's imagination and -- sometimes -- heart.
The Object of My Affection ain't a great movie. And that multiculty children of the rainbow conclusion is beyond silly. But, sheesh, StinkyLulu's got a soft spot for the flick.
And for LaWendy.
Blessings.
Edited to add: See The Feminist Spectator for a really interesting riff on how the passage of time informs an appreciation of LaWendy's work...
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