Just Another Girl-Gets-Girl Story

One might think that writer-director Maria Maggenti set out to portray lesbians in a positive light with her feature film debut, “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.” You know, right the wrongs of society, stand on her pedestal, that sort of thing.

But this was hardly the case.

“All I wanted to do was make a movie about falling in love,” said Maggenti, 31. “But I couldn’t do it with a boy-girl story, because that’s not my experience.”

“The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love,” which opened June 16, is really as simple as that--a story of two girls in love. It’s lighthearted, not enigmatic. Funny, not serious. Melodramatic, not dramatic. And perhaps most surprising to those who might have a problem or two with the gay subject matter, it’s sweet and innocent.

That’s not to say no social value or messages are found in the film. There’s plenty to be learned here, lessons found in its normality. This story of two high school seniors who meet, flirt, pass notes, gaze at each other from across school grounds and try to woo each other with poetry is not unlike a zillion other movie story lines. Except, of course, for that one little difference of sexuality, and “Two Girls” shows how little that difference is.

Maggenti says the handling of the sexual subject matter in the movie was no challenge for her--at least, not one she had time to deal with.

“I was a first-time filmmaker. The challenges I had to worry about were to get this film made for under $60,000, to do it on 16-millimeter film, to do half of my shots in one take,” Maggenti says. “As for dealing with the sexuality, that’s everyone else’s challenge.”

Sexual matters were, in fact, a challenge for the film’s stars, Laurel Holloman and Nicole Parker. Neither of the actresses, both 23, is a lesbian.

To deal with the roles, Holloman, who plays tomboy Randy, says she and Parker better educated themselves about the gay community by attending Gay Pride Week activities in New York and gay social functions. Never acknowledging that they were researching for a film, they just tried to blend in.

“It wasn’t difficult--it was fun,” Holloman says.

What was difficult was persuading Maggenti that her beloved lead characters could be played by straight actresses, particularly the role of Randy. While Parker’s character, Evie, was supposed to be a feminine, ladylike straight girl who is first experiencing gay love, Holloman had to be transformed into Randy, a “a short-haired, tough, butch [girl],” as Maggenti describes her.

In person, Holloman is far softer than the role might lead one to believe.

“The first time she walked in, I saw this tall, skinny, longhaired, beautiful actress, and I thought, ‘No way,’ ” Maggenti says.

The look had changed, though, by the time Holloman came for a callback. At that time, she was working in an Off Broadway play that called for her to look like a 15-year-old boy; fortunately, that was the look called for in Randy.

But Holloman says it took more than appearance to persuade Maggenti.

“I think I really had to convince Maria that I had no inhibitions about playing the part,” Holloman says. “She probably would have liked a lesbian actress to play the part, somebody who could have been a role model for the community, but she got me. In the end, the story and the character are what can be used as role models and not me personally.”

Both Maggenti and Holloman say there was one essential element in the shooting of “Two Girls” that really helped the actresses play their parts: the absence of men. While there were a few male crew members here and there during the shoot, which was done in Westchester County, N.Y., most of the major crew positions were held by women.

Life on the set was similar to life at home for the film’s protagonist, Randy, who lived with her aunt, her aunt’s female lover and their lesbian friend in a working-class neighborhood. Not all the women on the set were lesbians, but there were enough there to make Holloman’s surroundings seem like Randy’s.

“A lot of the girls on the crew were like my character, so I could just look around and pick up lingo from one and behavior from another, and it made it easy to stay in the character,” Holloman says.

Having a nearly all-female crew was not something Maggenti planned, she says. It just ended up that way.

“When you have a woman director or writer, then a woman producer will be drawn to the film, and from there other women just sort of gravitate to it,” Maggenti says. “The result of the female crew was very important for the actors because it freed them from the male gaze and made them less self-conscious. Without men, they could act like silly teen-age girls instead of the beautiful twentysomething actresses they really are.”

Although Maggenti says the point of her movie was not social commentary, she does not shy from any opportunity, or responsibility, she might obtain from “Two Girls” in furthering gay rights causes.

“I didn’t make a niche-market film,” she says. “It wasn’t about ‘Let’s make a lesbian film, and a bunch of lesbians will go see it.’ I wanted to make a film that people would enjoy, a film about an authentic human experience, and it happens to be with someone of the same sex.

“In the film, there’s a part where Randy says that when you’re in your life, it feels as normal as anything else. Well, this is how I’ve always lived, so my life is totally matter-of-fact and normal for me.”