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Review of “Bloomington”

Sexy and offbeat, Bloomington is a fantastic little drama from writer-director Fernanda Cardoso. Smartly playing with — and even subverting – the teacher-student lesbian romance, it’s a refreshing treat in a summer swimming with overdone melodramas.

Sarah Stouffer plays Jacqueline, a child star that has grown up and decided to go to college in Bloomington. She navigates the hallways and quadrangles just fine, but comes across an uncomfortable student population who alternatively fawns over her, (as big fans of Neptune 26, her cult TV series) or cast disapproving looks at the pampered ex-star.

Jackie herself hates the attention. As a straight-edged girl with a solid head on her shoulders, she honestly wants to learn — and get away from her obnoxious mother. She quickly takes on two majors, (English Literature and Psychology, of course) and buckles down with a study group of uneasy buddies.

As it turns out, she’s trying to escape from tragedy, as much as the craziness of showbiz, and her dysfunctional family life. It turns out that she left her show voluntarily after the death of a close friend, prompting the move out of Hollywood and the limelight in general.

It shows in her body language and her general savvy about people — Jackie may be a young adult, (perhaps 20 or so), but she’s not your average party-hearty kid. Nor is she a typical ex-child star, if such a thing exists. She carries herself as if she is older and wiser than everyone around her, though she never lords it over her supposed peers.

It doesn’t take her long to bump into Catherine Stark (Allison McAtee), a gorgeous Abnormal Psychology professor with a rumored knack for bedding her students — male and female. Faster than you can scream “holy Loving Annabelle, Batman”, the two begin a romance that is as hot as it is a bit bothersome.

Catherine is smoldering. She’s as traditionally beautiful as a Hitchcock blond, incredibly smart, and almost improbably perceptive. When she and Jackie first begin their affair, she’s gentle and giving — using her own gifts as a psychologist to find out exactly what Jackie needs — and she certainly provides. She is playful, sexy, and ultimately kind to her young lover, but of course, it all feels a bit guilty — deliciously so.

Compared to other teacher-student romances that we’ve seen on the lesbian screen, including Mädchen in Uniform and the more recent Loving Annabelle, this is far more above-board. It’s legal, for one – Jackie is certainly over 18 – and Catherine is not actually her professor, (though she does give the younger woman plenty of extra help with her studies). Of course, there is an uneven power dynamic at play, along with the fact that Catherine is (admittedly) a serial dater of students.

What’s more disturbing — and far subtler – is the pseudo mother-daughter dynamic that springs up between them. Jackie is very obviously in need of a mother figure in her life, (made abundantly clear by a fight with her real mom on Thanksgiving) and Catherine picks up on this right away. Nowhere is this more evident than in a scene where she is bathing Jackie, and the younger woman asks what happened to all of the students who came before her. Catherine explains, simply and rather sadly, that they all left. “Am I different?” asks Jackie, completely vulnerable. “Would you believe me if I said yes?” answers the elder, looking quite maternal with a washcloth in hand and an earnest smile.

This discomfort puts a realistic edge on their otherwise exciting romance. It helps that Jackie is so savvy, that Catherine is so playful, and that their affair is clandestine. But scenes such as this one make it difficult to shake a vague sense of anxiety and transgression.

Things take a turn when Jackie gets a call from her old agent. Some bigwigs in Hollywood are looking to make Neptune 26 into a major feature, and they’re interested in having Jackie reprise her role. She begins traveling between LA and Bloomington, pulling double duty as a student and a star, which puts a huge strain on her relationship with Catherine. For all of her love, the older woman is on the possessive side, though she never lets on until a pivotal, later scene.

To its credit, none of the cliché things one might expect to happen ever do. The storyline flows naturally from the well-drawn characters, and thankfully, no eleventh-hour plot devices rear their ugly heads. Instead, what we have here is one of the rarest of films: a refreshing, unique lesbian drama that gets things “right” in every department.

The acting is excellent, the characters are compelling and thoroughly likeable, the story is unique and well told. Every aspect of the production itself (the cinematography, editing, etc.) is unobtrusive and well done. Best are the love scenes, which are numerous and genuinely exciting, without any individual sequence ever overstaying its welcome.

Another nice touch is the omnipresent, subtle humor. Jackie is more apt to roll her eyes at the little annoyances of life (figuring out how to do her own laundry, dealing with star-struck fans) than she is to freak out about them, giving us a protagonist who likes to laugh at the world. In one scene, she uses some of her old technobabble lines to seduce Catherine, cooing sci-fi nonsense while Catherine giggles and sighs.

It’s clear that Bloomington was written with a tongue-in-cheek sense of snark about show business, a welcome element.

A bit under-the radar, with a tone is a slightly offbeat, Bloomington could be the sleeper hit of this season’s queer festival dramas. It’s sexy, it’s different, and best of all, it’s fun.

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