Kissing Jessica Stein

As you watch "Kissing Jessica Stein" it becomes clear that both women are looking for love rather than sex, which is perfect because this film is not about sex, and those who are looking for really hot lesbian sex scenes should just go rent "Mulholland Drive." The question here is not just whether the girl will get the girl, but what they are going to do when that finally happens. Then there is Josh Myers (Scott Cohen), Jessica's college boy friend, who now speaks of her with the same sort of practiced cynicism he reserves for the rest of the world. She disregards his jabs, and her disdain eventually inspires him to reconsider Jessica. However, we do not think as highly of Josh as he does himself, and there is something intrinsically sweet about the relationship between Jessica and Helen. Besides, the biggest obstacle to their happiness is not Josh, but Jessica herself, which remains both the character's curse and her charm.

Helen is not sure what to expect when Jessica shows up, but someone who is not only straight but who also brings a bunch of manuals and handbooks about lesbians would not have been a high expectation.... Getting physical proves difficult because they are so many places where Jessica does not want to be touched, but there is an undeniable something between the two young women that serves as the basis for a relationship, with or without benefits. Once Helen becomes aware that Jessica loves her, she suddenly shows a patience that we would not have expected from her. Yet Helen is even more uncomfortable with the idea of her family and friends knowing about their relationship than she is with actual physical intimacy, and there is no doubt that things will come to a head between them.

Westfeldt and Juergensen first created and played the characters of Jessica and Helen for their stage play "Lipschtick," which certainly explains why they are both so totally comfortable in their roles. As writers they have created a script that is smart and witty, and one of the biggest surprises is that they do not give the film's best moment to themselves but to Tovah Feldshuh as Judy Stein, Jessica's mother. I have been a fan of Feldshuh's ever since she played Katharine Hepburn in "The Amazing Howard Hughes" and Helena Slomova in "Holocaust." Catching her as Danielle Melnick on "Law and Order" has always been a treat as well, so it was nice to see she was in this movie. But I was still blown away by her mother-daughter talk with Jessica, and the exquisitely powerful delivery of a single line. This is one of those memorable jewels of a moment in a movie where you know you will never forget it and just thinking about it invokes its power.

The DVD of "Kissing Jessica Stein" has two commentary tracks, the first with director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld and cinematographer Lawrence Sher, and the second with co-stars and co-writers Westfeldt and Juergensen. It will not surprise you that the latter is both more interesting and more insightful. There are a series of deleted scenes, including some choice outtakes from the bad date montage, and a standard behind the scenes featurette. "Kissing Jessica Stein" is not a great romantic comedy, but it is very good, which makes it stand out in that genre, especially with regards to same sex romantic comedies. Besides, any romance that treats both the heart and the head with equal regard is worth checking out. Read more ›

Jennifer Westfeldt plays Jessica, a nice, attractive, inherently heterosexual Jewish girl whose luck finding the right fella is positively dismal, perhaps because of impossibly high standards. Desperation causes her to answer a personal ad in the paper placed by Helen (Heather Juergensen), the bisexual, adventurous and passionate manager of an art gallery. The subsequent closet relationship progresses from unsure trepidation (on Jessica's part) to a full-scale lesbian affair that generates a "guess who's coming to dinner" tension when Jessica brings Helen, a shikse, to meet her family gathered together for her brother's wedding. Of course, Mom (Tovah Feldshuh) has always wanted her daughter to wed a nice (and successful) Jewish boy, and hasn't been shy about matchmaking. Oy!

This isn't a bad film by any means. All of the principle characters are attractive and sympathetic. However, except for one poignant heart-to-heart between Jessica and her mother, the emotional depths and pitfalls of a relationship with a same-sex lover are barely plumbed. This is not a deep film in any sense, and Jessica dances across what could be a potential minefield relatively unscathed. It's as if the film's producers didn't know whether to make it a comedy or drama, and by the final scene I wasn't sure why they'd bothered. Perhaps they thought it would raise more eyebrows in Traditional America. And maybe it did.... However, here in multi-lifestyle Southern California, the KISSING JESSICA STEIN movie experience was similar to watching the waves roll onto the beach or the palms sway in the ocean breeze - not without its attractions, but certainly not noteworthy. Read more ›