Lost and Delirious (2001) – DVD

*½/**** Image A Sound B
starring Piper Perabo, Jessica Pare, Mischa Barton, Jackie Burroughs
screenplay by Judith Thompson, based on the novel The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan
directed by Léa Pool

by Walter Chaw A teen-lesbian Phenomenon without the maggots and psychotic chimp, Lost and Delirious is gawky, breathy, and self-important–just like a teenage girl, I guess, which makes the film difficult to criticize in a conventional way. It does such a good job with the portentousness of that mawkish Shakespeare-quoting period in a young woman's life that some will and have mistaken its gaucherie for a portrayal of gaucherie. But mostly what Lost and Delirious succeeds in doing is helping The Virgin Suicides and its portrait of the dulcet, ephemeral cult of childhood impress even more by comparison.

Mouse (Mischa Barton) is shy and lachrymose, a moribund teen still reeling from the death of her mother three years previous and bristling under the yoke of her new stepmom. Sent away to an exclusive boarding school, Mouse finds herself roomed with Paulie (Piper Perabo) and Tori (Jessica Paré)–who, as it turns out, are lovers. Along the primrose path of her first term, Mouse witnesses an injured hawk (abused most poorly as a metaphor for a troubled youth's soaring spirit), a lover's spat turn into the kind of dire melodrama that only takes place amongst manic-depressive teenagers, and Violent Femmes and Ani DiFranco expanded to anthem in the same way that Lost and Delirious' familiar archetypes are expanded to totem. You can do it, in other words, but it's best not to push it.

Based on a novel by Susan Swan (The Wives of Bath), Lost and Delirious never succeeds in transcending its literariness. It might read okay (though I sort of doubt it), but you sure can't say it: the young women are forced to emote through monologues that are some insipid, bastardized mixture of The Bell Jar, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, and a middle-schooler's suicide note. Cringe-worthy for its earnestness at the very least and hilarious for its lack of irony at its worst, Lost and Delirious wants you to believe that it has deep currents, but it's so terrified of being obtuse that it renders itself shallow. The film wears its subtext on its sleeve–enough so that the girls constantly refer to themselves as "the lost girls." In case we missed the connection, one adds, "Like in Peter Pan…but with girls."

What consistently works about the picture is its ecstatic cinematography. Director of Photography Pierre Gill's extraordinary tableaux and golden lighting schemes (not a blue to be found, save for the cool richness of Lost and Delirious' night) lend the picture a degree of lush rapture that it does not otherwise earn with its histrionics. (Note a perhaps-unfortunate cutaway when, during the rather tame lesbian sex scene, Gill turns discreetly to a verdant shot of fecund shrubbery.) Perabo's much-lauded performance is really a stock collection of classroom posturing and Byronic attitudes, while Paré, given far less to do, does far less with it. Most uncertain is the casting of Barton in the ostensible lead: a steadfast kowtowing to convention aside, there's no reason for her to be the centre of the film; she is severely underwritten, and so simpering a creature that little sympathy is aroused by her supposed transformation.

Lost and Delirious is an all-bodice-ripping adolescent boarding school opera directed in a meandering, unfocused manner by Léa Pool that, like the awkwardness of its gaudiness, begs to be forgiven as artistic rather than just confused. I'm not buying into it. The picture is clearly well-meaning–sort of a female take on The Chocolate War–but it only works about as well as a Beverly Cleary novel's idea of metaphor and morality. It's aimed at a very young audience: meek enough in its rebellion not to overly offend, and obvious enough in its messages not to challenge. That it's beautiful to look at only goes so far in making the ordeal of trying to take it seriously worthwhile.

THE DVD
Séville's Canadian import DVD of Lost and Delirious comes with a lush 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer free of edge-enhancement. Black levels of the image are extremely satisfying (oh, those night scenes), and the many shots of wild Stygian forest are phenomenally green yet free of colour bleed. The Dolby 5.1 audio has a rough start, with music overwhelming the dialogue at several points, though the sound elements seem to balance out in the middle chapters through to the end. A rainstorm at the close of chapter 12 demonstrates a wonderful and subtle use of all six channels–the rumble of thunder is warm and nostalgic. A five-minute "Behind the Scenes" featurette is of the standard plot exposition and meaningless soundbites, while a short photo gallery is exactly the kind of superfluous extra that no one really explores and are none the lesser for skipping.

103 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Stereo), French DD 2.0 (Stereo); CC; DVD-9; Region One; Séville