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After a very brief fade to black — Claire tells her story. It has something to do with her father abusing her mother, and female power, and primal bleeding. I can't even begin.

Thus begins the courtship: Before we know it, Claire is lighting a cigarette for a (choking) Noel; there's more backgammon and more drinking; and the new age piano trips over and through it all.

And then they're reading each other's books and smiling coyly as they pass each other in the hallway, and accidentally grabbing each other's teacups. That wasn't a metaphor.

Dinner — Claire and Noel have dinner with Craggy and B.J., which I guess counts as being in the lesbian inner circle. As Maggie and B.J. clear the dishes, Claire and Noel cozy up by the fireplace. Well, not quite: They exchange significant glances, but there's still no touching. You like foreplay, right? Good, because this movie is one long windup.

Maggie and B.J. show up and ask Noel about her latest research, which seems to have something to do with communication and intimacy. Claire wants to know just how to reach nirvana, but doesn't like Noel's answer.

Noel: We're all of us searching, with this insatiable hunger, to be intimate — truly intimate. But juxtaposed with that is the battle of how far we will expose ourselves to achieve it.
Claire: What a dreary prognosis.
B.J.: So, out with it. Where do we find it?
Noel: Different ways. Some of us get it from our friends. A rare few get it from our lovers. [looking at Claire] Others f*** strangers. [looking back at everyone else] If we open ourselves to someone, we run the risk of being judged. Brandished. We have to justify what eroticizes us. And what if we want something from our partner that disgusts them?
Claire: [angrily] And what if it doesn't? Don't you think it's possible to find a meeting of the minds during the act of sex?
Noel: Great sex does not equal intimacy.
Claire: So you're saying that men and women cannot achieve intimacy?
Noel: It can be imitated. It can be simulated. But men and women will never speak the same language. And so men and women can never achieve true intimacy.
Claire: So that rare achievement is reserved only for dykes.
Noel: That would be the logical conclusion.
B.J.: Perhaps it comes back down to our lack of language on the whole —
Claire: Excuse me, doctor, but I think your rhetoric sucks.

And she snatches up her cigarettes and makes for the door. Take that, my pretty doctor. And your little rhetoric too.

Again, I had to transcribe the dialogue because I'm not sure what it means. Let's start with “brandished.” Does she really mean that when we open ourselves to someone, we risk being waved around menacingly, like a sword or like Naomi Campbell's cell phone? I think she really meant “branded,” and it just makes me want to stamp a big STUPID on her ass.

I also have no idea how we got from “great sex” to “men and women.” Except in Claire's head, I suppose. And as for logical conclusions, the only one I've managed to reach is that I'm searching, with an insatiable hunger, for the remote.

Back to the bar — Claire is staring wistfully at the sea. Wait: She's staring blankly, and I'm staring wistfully, wishing it would swallow me up and rescue me from this movie.

Noel shows up. She apologizes for what she said at Craggy's and insists, “it isn't a lesbian issue.” I don't even know what the issue is, let alone whether it's lesbian. Oh, right, intimacy.

Noel: You'd think having two women make love to one another, you'd manage to have some pretty wild sex. Truth is, they feel just as exposed and vulnerable.

That sure makes lesbian sex sound thrilling. Noel offers to buy Claire a drink “at that place you're so fond of.” Claire sort of hip-bumps her in reply, which I guess means, “Thanks; that sounds delightful.”

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