“Afternoon Delight” just won Best Director at Sundance for writer/director Jill Soloway. It was her first feature. The film stars Kathryn Hahn as a hipster-suburban wife and mother struggling with what she’s supposed to do with her life. After she goes to a strip club with her husband and gets a lap dance, she decides that she’s supposed to save the stripper - so she brings her home to live with her family as the new nanny. Supporting cast includes Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother), Michaela Watkins (Wanderlust), Jessica St. Clair (Bridesmaids), Annie Mumolo (Bridesmaids) and Michael Keegan-Key (Key & Peele) and Jane Lynch (Glee).
Notable in this film is its Bechdel-busting lineup: there are seven named female characters, all of whom talk to each other, about things other than men. (The Bechdel Test is really simple, and yet it’s amazing how many movies fail it spectacularly.)
From “The Feminist Delights of Afternoon Delight“ which I wrote for BitchMedia:
Marriages need spicing up. Romance fades in the face of diapers. Familiarity breeds contempt. Strippers are agents of downfall, redemption, or both. And perfect suburban life has its dark side. Is it different this time, in the hands of a female writer/director? And should that matter?
Yes and yes. Damned straight yes.More:
Filmmaking is about storytelling from a specific perspective. When that perspective is dominated by one type of person—generally white men—then storytelling as a whole suffers. This is definitely a film that men will watch and enjoy… But in the evolving subgenre of film where former twentysomething romantic leads suddenly find themselves grappling with a new kind of hipster malaise, it’s nice to have a woman’s perspective in there, along with Judd Apatow’s.And:
It’s no secret that there are way more roadblocks for woman making movies. At Sundance, where Afternoon Delight premiered earlier this week, a comprehensive study called “Exploring the Barriers and Opportunities for Independent Women Filmmakers” also had its debut, finding a ratio between male and female directors of 15.24 to 1. The reasons for this disparity included significantly less access to funding; fewer women as prestige and pay scale increase; and being cockblocked in Hollywood’s world of “male-dominated industry networking.”The study also found that films directed by women involve more women across the board—a female director means an average of 21 percent more women working on narrative film and 24 percent more women working on documentaries. This means more roles for women on-camera and off, more opportunities for experience and advancement.
Amazing to see “Afternoon Delight” get recognition as a smart, complex and provocative film. Its success will pave the way for other Bechel Test-smashing filmmakers - and honestly, that’s good for everyone.
(Also, I love Kathryn Hahn. So there’s that.)
What she said.
