Mary Lou is the drag persona of Meir (Ido Rozenberg) in Mary Lou.
"Courage," declares the gay teenage protagonist in
Mary Lou, "is sometimes nothing more than an outburst of great despair." Meir (Ido Rozenberg) plainly needs someone to tell him it gets better in Israeli director Eytan Fox's queer-centric musical fable, especially after a climactic high school graduation-night humiliation sends him fleeing for the bright lights of Tel Aviv. His goal is to find his mother Miriam (Maya Dagan), who left without a word on his 10th birthday to become a backup singer for Israeli pop star Svika Pick -- in the comforting fantasy Meir invented. The 2009 film makes its U.S. debut Saturday at the
Castro Theatre.