Thailand, and specifically Bangkok, is always praised (whether rightly or wrongly) for its open acceptance of the gay community. And there’s certainly been a pretty steady stream of decent gay movies coming to the big screen over the past five years: movies like Love of Siam and Yes or No, which also went down well regionally, and more recently the delightfully well-crafted It Gets Better from Thanwarin Sukhaphisit. Now we get a lesbian love story She, but unfortunately it’s not good enough to sit with such lofty company.
The movie actually tells two girl-meets-girl stories. First up is Bua (Penpak Sirikul) who decides to get divorced from her husband of 20 years and leave her only daughter, Prae. Her secret motivation is the cancer from which she is dying and the suffering that she wants to spare them from. She then meets June (Siriwan Baker), a photographer who is young enough to be her daughter. Despite the age difference, they fall in love as June helps Bua deal with her loneliness as her life comes to a close.
The other couple is Da (Apasaporn Saengthong), a columnist who tries to revive her career after a sex scandal by hooking up with Bee (Kittichaya Gaesuwan), a next-door tomboy. Da is trying to use Bee as a material to write up some sensational stories about lesbian life—but she soon begins to feel there’s something more between her and Bee. (And the ensuing sex scenes are super hot!)
Saranya Noithai, who both wrote and directed this movie, seems a bit out of her depth with the feature-length format. Maybe she should have kept both stories as short films and avoided the random scenes that pepper her effort—the sadist tomboy who tries to rape Da was particularly odd. But even the main relationships, Bua and June in particular, seem a bit contrived. The chemistry seems more mother-daughter than lovers.
Are gays being exploited to bring a bit of hype and allure to otherwise clichéd movies? Perhaps, but we’re not complaining. A pedestrian feel-good movie may just be one more step to making homosexuality banal. And at least tomboy newcomer Kittichya is a revelation: cute, full of joie de vivre, and a talented actress.