Really Surprised!

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Life Partners can be viewed as a feminist version of the typical boy meets girl trope, but this film focuses more heavily on the friendship between two women. Paige, played by Gillian Jacobs is an uptight lawyer who is complemented by Sasha's care-free attitude. Paige hopes to meet a man that she likes as much as Sasha but believes it is impossible until she meets Tim. Sasha seems to be free falling through life as she blazes through relationships with various women and jobs she doesn't like while she attempts to become a musician. The movie opens with the quirky friendship between Paige and Sasha as they attend a local Pride Parade and they watch America's Next Top Model. The plot lures you in with the typical romantic comedy and chick flick aspects but you soon realize that this film has more than its face value. Life Partners quickly becomes a film that delves into real life problems, such as settling down in life and holding onto the friends you have because they seem to be the only ones that can keep you afloat. The plot, although mostly female driven, can easily resonate with people of all genders. It does not have the perfect ending for every character and thus seems more realistic than any film like it.Involving almost a full cast of female characters, Life Partners easily passes the Bechdel test that seems to be a challenge for most films. With the help of their other friends, all the females in this movie truly grow at their own pace and staggered to seem more natural than other romantic comedies illustrate. Susanna Fogel did an amazing job of writing and directing a film that achieves a perfect a quirky comedy that balances humor with drama and normalizes the LGBT culture, which most other films find hard to achieve. Fogel also successfully avoided the cliché of "best friends being in love" that completely elevated the story line. The chemistry between the characters leads you to believe that the actresses posses the same chemistry in everyday life.

An adorable film by writer-director Susanna Fogel, "Life Partners" stars Leighton Meester and Gillian Jacobs as Sasha and Paige, a pair of best friends. This friendship is tested by the duo's increasingly diverging personalities; Paige is a hard-working conformist, Sasha is a lackadaisical lesbian and artist. Sasha accuses Pagie of changing, of betraying who she is, of becoming just another staid automaton, whilst Paige accuses Sasha of being directionless, lazy and afraid of growing up.At first glance, "Life Partners" resembles Terry Zwigoff's "Ghost World". In that film, two best friends slowly drift apart, one becoming an artist who refuses to abide by the ways of the world, the other becoming a more traditional housewife, mother and wage-earner. A covertly political film, "Ghost World" ended with a gentle condemnation of late-capitalism's various social pressures.In "Life Partners", though, both the artist (Sasha) and the conformist (Paige) learn to get with the programme. Here, "maturation" and "adulthood" are seen to be something to aspire to, and these aspirations are intimately bound to "work", nine-to-fives and the imposition of certain identities in order to maximise efficiency. Aware of this, director Susanna Fogel attempts to make her cast somewhat edgy, Paige an environmentalist and Sasha a musician. But like most modern films about non-heteronormatives ("The Kids are all Right", "Transamerica", "Dallas Buyer's Club" etc), diversity is still ultimately doublespeak for ideological conformity.As a film about friendship, ageing and the anxieties of the young, "Life Partners" is mostly excellent. Fogel's dialogue zips by, and Meester and Jacobs, with their expressive faces, are mesmerising, cute and convey well the joys of friendship and the insecurities of being a young adult. By treating Sasha's homosexuality as no big deal, the film normalises homosexuality far better than most other films which try to ennoble the LGBT community.8.5/10 - Worth two viewings. See "The Children's Hour" and "Running on Empty" (1988).

Life Partners can be described as a romantic comedy with the typical components of the genre (boy and girl meet, fall in love, break up, reconcile). It can also be described as a "chick flick" with slight feminist touches. And it can also be considered "gay cinema", because it portrays the amorous ups and downs of a group of lesbians in Los Ángeles. In fact, Life Partners is all that and more... and at the same time less. The screenplay covers many aspects, and it ends up falling short in each one of them. This doesn't make the film bad, but it avoids it from being particularly amusing, deep or memorable... it's just tolerable through 93 minutes of hollow narrative calories with a minimum intellectual nourishment. The main pro of Life Partners is the solid performances from Leighton Meester and Gillian Jacobs, who are both completely credible as friends with similar tastes and personality, but different levels of maturity. The main problem of the film is that nothing feels genuinely deep or dramatic. Things happen... there are cheers which don't inspire joy... other things happen... there are conflicts lacking of an emotional impact... and that's how the film goes by, more like a series of insipid vignettes than as a genuine tale about friendship, growth and reconciliation. However, Life Partners didn't bore me, mainly because of the competent works from Meester and Jacobs. Nevertheless, I wish this film had gone farther in any of its facets: funnier as a comedy, more passionate as a romance or more subversive as a gay manifest.

This movie was easy enough to watch and decently entertaining. The acting by some characters leaves much to be improved, and the transition was too quick on most parts so it feels like watching another one of those comedy flicks. However, a lot of issues tackled on the movie were very realistic and very relatable (growing out of a phase, postponing one's passion for a more conventional and menial job to afford time for creative study but end up rethinking your priorities and looking at your life from a different perspective). As a lesbian myself, I also appreciate how they treated the lesbian characters "normally" and not have their roles blown out of proportion (you know how Hollywood uses straight girl-on-girl kissing as bait). All in all, a good film worthy of staying up for on a weeknight!