Despite recent progress for women in front of and behind the camera, the movie scene still has too few female directors and gives short shrift to stories about women. Carrie Preston’s debut feature, to its credit, not only has three female protagonists, but keeps men off-screen to a degree that comes close to the all-female cast of “The Women” in 1939.
So it’s deeply frustrating to discover that this 2012 movie has precisely the same concerns as the older film — appearance and men — with raunchy frankness about sex added and every trace of real wit siphoned out.
Bebe (Marcia DeBonis) is spending her Manhattan Saturday preparing for a long-awaited follow-up date with the first man she’s slept with in ages. Dee Dee (Anne Heche) — her abrasive, chain-smoking, hung-over friend — is supposed to be helping out.
Along the way they run into Clementine (Alia Shawkat), who just broke up with her boyfriend. Problems ensue, all tedious, save Bebe’s all-day struggle with a yeast infection, which is gross.
The actresses do what they can with the material; Heche in particular has lost none of her on-screen magnetism, despite an off-putting character. There are a few funny lines (“I look like Al Sharpton,” moans Bebe after a bad haircut), but for the most part, she needs a rewrite.