Margaret is a big lumpy mess. She’s arrived in Manhattan and is homeless and jobless and has decided to resort to being a hooker to make ends meet. The trouble is that this overweight unkempt lesbian seems to have little experience in sexual matters let alone trying to make a living from providing a service pleasuring other women. She does, however, have the good fortune to meet Joan attractive street-savvy professional who asks Margaret if she is homeless, followed by ‘are you a women’s studies major?’. Evidently, the two things go together which was one of the many things I learnt about being a lesbian hooker (For example, who knew that they always ply their trade outside Talbot Department Stores ?)
Jo, allegedly straight, takes Margaret on as her ‘protege’ and shows her the ways of the new profession that she is the most unlikely candidate for. She also encourages her to accept a series of the weirdest dates with clients whose tastes range from most ridiculous to totally bizarre, all of which are hysterically funny. There is also an encounter in a cemetery with a man offering the two hookers a selection of merkins to cover their female pudenda (another learning curve for me too)
The movie reunites director Madeline Olnek with star and co-writer Lisa Haas after their delightful oddball ‘Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same’. They employ the same droll absurdist humor in this lesbian nod/tribute to ‘Midnight Cowboys’ that will again delight a late-night arthouse audience. There are some wonderful clever one-liners such as ‘women don’t fall in love, they just compost together and lose all sense of style and wear identical bad clothes’.
Lisa Haas as Margaret is disarmingly charming and that combined with great performances from a motley crew of performance artists, stand up comedians and local actors makes the piece work so well. My one small criticism is that Olnek has packed all the really funny bits into the first part of the movie and seemed to be running out of steam towards the end.
Good silly fun.
