Combined with its title, the poster for Susanna Fogel's comedy Life Partners — starring Gillian Jacobs and Leighton Meester with the tagline, "One guy can ruin the perfect relationship" — is misleading at best, suggesting it's a rom-com updating of The Fox or some other film where a man's cock sets a lesbian straight. It's not about that at all, thankfully, but rather the way that platonic relationships between close friends necessarily change when one of them gets into a romantic relationship with a third party. In this case, queer Sasha (Meester) and straight Paige (Jacobs) are lifelong besties who find their personal dynamics shifting when Paige gets involved with a boy named Tim (Adam Brody). In spite of how much time is spent setting him up as one of those nozzles who worships The Big Lebowski (i.e., the worst), Tim is revealed to be a nice enough guy, but the film's not really about him. Its focus is ultimately on Sasha and Paige's friendship, and how Paige's successes cause Sasha to reflect on her own failures, though being queer is not among them; it's just who she is. Life Partners also gets points for the presence of the terrific Gabourey Sidibe as one of Sasha's lesbian pals. She makes everything better.
Comments are closed.
