Eric Schaeffer | Through the Shattered Lens

Lucy (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Joe (Eric Schaeffer) are two platonic best friends and roommates. They have a pact. If they don’t find true love by the time Lucy turns 30, they’ll hold hands while jumping off of the Brooklyn Bridge. Now, Lucy’s 30th birthday is rapidly approaching and Lucy still hasn’t found the right man! Meanwhile, Joe is obsessed with Jane (Elle MacPherson) but he hasn’t had sex in five years! It looks like Lucy and Joe are going to have to commit suicide. They made a pact, after all and single New Yorkers don’t break pacts. Fortunately, things start to look up when Joe finally talks to Jane and Lucy meets a weirdo artist named Bwick (Ben Stiller). Or could Lucy and Joe are actually meant to be together?

If Lucy Fell was briefly a big deal in 1996 because it featured both supermodel Elle MacPherson and Ben Stiller. (It’s easy to forget how popular Ben Stiller was in the mid-90s.) Once the film came out, people discovered that it was actually about the bland characters played by Sarah Jessica Parker and Eric Schaeffer and the film bombed at the box office. Though it may be forgotten today, If Lucy Fell is still the epitome of the type of independent romantic comedy that a lot of directors made in the 90s. Take a plot line that probably wouldn’t have made it beyond the table read if it was an episode of Friends (it’s interesting to note that both MacPherson and Stiller later made guest appearances on that sitcom), toss in some “alternative” music, and beg someone with a well-known name to take a supporting role. The film is also interesting as an example of how a generally unappealing actor can play the lead in a romantic comedy and get to make out with both Elle MacPherson and Sarah Jessica Parker. Just write and direct the film and then cast yourself in the lead role. Congratulations to Eric Schaeffer for figuring it all out.

I’ve been feeling nostalgic for the 90s. I guess everyone eventually feels nostalgic for the decade in which they grew up. But nostalgia can be a harsh taskmaster and it’s important to remember that not all 90s independent films were Pulp Fiction and Fargo. Quite a few of them were If Lucy Fell. Ben Stiller has some funny moments, though they’re so cartoonish that they seem like they belong in a different film. Elle MacPherson is beautiful, even if her character never makes sense. Sarah Jessica Parker seems like she deserves better than everything the film offered to her. Eric Schaeffer is dull but at least he got along with the director. 12 year-old Scarlett Johansson has a small role. If Lucy Fell was a film that could only have been made in 1996 and it was forgotten by 1997.

Ricky (Michelle Hendley)

This movie popped up on my radar earlier this year and I made the mistake of thinking they had hired a genetic girl (GG) to play the role of the trans woman named Ricky. I was informed that they had actually gotten the real deal. That’s always nice. I don’t mind when it’s a cisgender man because we call that acting. However, when it’s a GG, it’s kind of the transgender equivalent of blackface. Just without malicious intent.

Now the movie is on Netflix, both DVD and streaming, so I took a look. I had heard that it was a romantic comedy type movie and that was all I knew. The movie is just that. It’s a familiar formula that we’ve all seen before. Two friends who should be lovers, but don’t realize it till one of them has a failed relationship with someone else. The difference is that the girl is transgender and the failed relationship is with another girl.

A girl named Francesca comes in to a coffee shop and makes the worst faux pas ever. She thinks she’s ordering at Starbucks.

Francesca (Alexandra Turshen)

This Isn’t Starbucks

Ricky’s friend Robby, played by Michael Welch, can see the attraction a mile away. Of course, we can see that Robby should be with Ricky a mile away.

The two start hanging out together and Ricky tells her she’s trans. Francesca doesn’t really care. Francesca is engaged to a soldier in Afghanistan but despite this fact, the two form a sexual relationship.

While all this is going on, we keep cutting back to a video Ricky made as a kid about being trans and how that affected her relationship with her mother who is long gone. We also get a great flashback to when she, Robby, and some friends were surprised by a flasher as kids during Halloween.

Trick or Treat? Trick!

There honestly isn’t a whole lot to say about the story that wouldn’t be just telling you the whole plot. The only things that remain are the transgender issues. For some bizarre reason the four reviews in the Metascore section of IMDb are divided heavily across gender lines. The male ones are 90 and 100, but the two female one’s are 50’s. Maybe it’s just the scoring of their reviews that’s screwy. Reading the extracts of their reviews, the guys seen to be seeing more than there is and the girls seem to let the problems cloud their judgement. Let’s take a quick look at the big positive and the big negative.

The big positive is normalcy. I haven’t seen a whole lot of transgender movies, but when I do, they tend to be tragedy (Boys Don’t Cry), I’m artsy and tackled a difficult topic so please give me awards (Laurence Anyways), documentaries (Red Without Blue and Mr. Angel), or a movie like Tomboy and Ma Vie En Rose. This is just a romantic comedy that happens to have a transgender character in it. It’s important that more films that bring being transgender into the mainstream get made. I’ll see The Danish Girl, but I’d like 10 Boy Meets Girl to be made for every movie like Beautiful Boxer.

The big negative is education. It’s 2015 and even an LGBTIQ positive documentary from 2013 (Camp Beaverton: Meet The Beavers) used the word transgendered. We live in a world where people are still ignorant enough that explaining is kind of necessary. It does detract from the characters and story. I wish that Ricky’s YouTube channel could have been something other than fashion (female stereotype), but I also understand why she absolutely couldn’t be a gamer. Putting aside copyright issues, that is still such a strong male stereotype that it would have sent an unintended message of a boy who is a female impersonator rather than the real deal. I wish director Eric Schaeffer could have taken a leap of faith in these areas like he did by having her with both a girl and a boy sexually, but I understand why he didn’t. Still, she could have done cooking.

I certainly don’t speak for the transgender community. I speak for myself. I would say check it out. It’s not going to make any lists of the best movies of 2014/2015, but it’s a good start.

Ricky and Robby

Note: When the letter comes, and you will know it when you see it, pause the movie, since it goes away quickly, and actually read it. It’s a humorous goof the movie made.