“This is just like school,” another character says, echoing the film’s main theme: that of female power-trips, spawned in the claustrophobic, enforced settings of, say, educational facilities. Take away the education and the men, and what you have left are raging adolescent hormones, unleashed and taking ugly physical form. Yet, according to Kramer and Shearn, there may have to be ugliness to counterbalance beauty. Without men, women may resort to their most primal instincts and desires, and things might just turn ugly. “This party would be a lot more fun if boys were here,” Piper states. “Pretty girls just want to be told that they’re smart,” Olivia says, “and smart girls just want to be told that they’re pretty. That’s why we’re never happy. That’s why we never like each other – we just want boys’ approval.”
Unpredictable, impassioned (despite the cold tone), and highly artistic, Ladyworld might contain a few amateur touches here and there, a few lags in momentum (and an utter lack of mainstream appeal), yet it’s cerebral and forceful, and will have you deliberating its themes for days after.
Ladyworld (2019) Directed by Amanda Kramer. Written by Amanda Kramer and Benjamin Shearn. Starring Ariela Barer, Annalise Basso, Ryan Simpkins, Odessa Adlon, Maya Hawke, Tatsumi Romano, Zora Casebere, Atheena Frizzell.
8 out of 10
"…“They pee in washing machines, hock loogies into sinks, make out with each other...""
