The Inside Out LGBT Toronto Film Festival continued on Saturday with the time-bending, sexy, lesbian romp, And Then Came Lola , co-directed by Ellen Seidler and Megan Siler.
Ashleigh Sumner stars as Lola, who has been something of a train wreck in her previous relationships but she wants to have something more serious with her girlfriend Casey (Jill Bennett). Casey calls her one day in a panic asking her to pick up some photos for a client presentation and to meet her in an hour at a bar across town. Lola is known for being unreliable and late for everything so she knows this is her chance to make things right. She goes on a wild crazy journey across San Francisco in a series of comical situations that she both causes and is a victim of. Lola’s former lover Jen (Jessica Graham) who runs the photo developing store where she is getting the photos, causes Lola think back to how things went wrong with Jen and how not to repeat the same mistakes with Casey. What adds to the tension is that Casey’s client is Danielle (Cathy DeBuono), a sexy Italian woman that Casey might have a past with. Once she arrives at the bar with the photos, it doesn’t go as Lola hoped and things are ruined between her and Casey. The next morning Lola wakes up again like it was a dream and it all happens again but Lola can try and make it right .and she then of course wakes up later again and to get a final third chance.
If the name and situation sound familiar, this is a very loose remake of the basic premise of the 1998 German film Run Lola Run . This film doesn’t have any of the serious tones of the original, but the structure is the same. The film does add some original touches by having many of the action segments turn into animated sequences. It is also interlaced with relationship confessionals to the camera in a therapist’s office by all the main characters in the film. This is a clever touch that makes the movie more of a fun character study, rather than just a silly race to beat the clock.
If the women in San Francisco really look anything like the women do in And Then Came Lola, then I need to book my bus ticket there tomorrow. There isn’t a single woman in this film that is anything less than drop dead gorgeous. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it certainly adds to the light feel of this film and for a comedy, and the film is extremely sexy. It’s a fun comedy that I think straight and LGBT audiences would really enjoy equally. –