Queer Review: Imagine Me and You (2005)

Imagine Me and You
Director: Ol Parker
Writer: Ol Parker
Cast: Piper Perabo, Lena Headey, Matthew Goode, Celia Imrie, Anthony Head, Darren Boyd

Overview
A lesbian romance, Imagine Me and You is about as bland and unexciting as one would expect from any modern romantic comedy.

Synopsis
Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Heck (Matthew Goode) are getting married but during the ceremony, Rachel catches the eye Luce (Lena Headey), the florist who had composed the flower arrangements. Shortly after Rachel and Heck have settled into their new lives, Rachel invites Luce over for dinner. It is not long, however, before the two woman are falling in love with each other, thereby forcing Rachel to make a critical decision.

The Queering
I think I might be the wrong person to write a review of this, as I am nowhere near being a member of the target audience. Imagine Me and You is not an awful movie but it wallows so far into the pit of mediocrity, I kept wanting to throw it an electrified life preserver just to liven the proceedings up. The biggest thrill for me was realizing Anthony Stewart Head, who played Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire slayer, was going to have a small role.

There are admittedly some nice touches. Heck is essentially a good guy, not some cad, which gives some weight to Rachel's choice to stay or divorce him in order to be with Luce. The cad role is provided by Heck's friend Cooper (Darren Boyd) who provides a small, but much needed, amount of comic relief. Between that and the fact that Mathew Goode gives the best performance in the whole movie, I could not help but wonder how much better proceedings would have been had Imagine Me and You been told from the perspective of the male leads, rather than the lesbian lovers. But like I said, I do not think I was this films target audience.

Beyond that, there is little more to say, besides that this is essentially to me the lesbian version of Latter Days. The reason I say that is because both movies are unremarkable gay rom coms that have little ambition and would have received almost no attention if they had not had gay protagonists to "spice" things up.

Recommendation
For those desperate for lightweight romances featuring queer characters this might fit the bill, but I kept imagining how much fun it would be for me to be watching something else.

The Rating

Trailer


Want to find a review of a particular work? Check out the Title Index, the archive of all reviews posted listed alphabetically.