Helen Shaver is a recently divorced middle aged women who tries to forget recent events in a small desert restort town. It's there that she finds herself falling in love with a seductive, free-spirited woman (Charbonneau).
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Actresses:
Helen Shaver & Patricia Charbonneau
The two take refuge from the pouring rain in a parked car. The romantic tension by this point is through the roof, although it's clear that Shaver is afraid of these feeings she feels for Charbonneau. Charbonneau gets out of the car, but comes back and asks Shaver to roll her windown down. After doing so, she leans her head in and they kiss. Shaver returns the kiss, but breaks it off once she realizes what she doing.
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Actresses:
Helen Shaver & Patricia Charbonneau
The big love scene has the two in Shaver's motel room. She is quite uncomfortable, and wants Charbonneau to leave. The two sit on the bed, and Shaver continues to attempt to give her admirer the brush off. Shaver goes to the bathroom, looks in the mirror, and once again tells Charbonneau that it's all such a bad idea, but when she walks back into the bedroom, Shaver is already under the covers with her top off. Shaver realizes at this point that there is no turning back and nervously states that she "wouldn't know what to do".
Charbonneau gently coaxes her into bed where she slowly takes Shaver's robe off. Charbonneau gets on top, and the two kiss passionately while their breast touch for the first time. Charbonneau goes all out here, definitly taking the male role in terms of intiative. Kissing her way all over Shaver's body. Eventually, it's almost as if the feelings get to be too much for Shaver, and she reacts like she wants to stop. Shaver wordlessly gets her to relax, and Shaver tries being on top. Shaver kisses Charbonneau, they hold each other close. The camera shots are all from the waist up throughout, but their movements and increasing sounds imply that they are furiously grinding aginst each other. Eventually, Charbonneau lifts up and after a nice moan, grunts once and relaxes, indicating she had an orgasm. They fall back in each others arms.
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Definitly an all time classic lesbian love scene for a non erotic movie, Desert Hearts is a scorcher in terms of eroticism. The two women are an intresting pair, and the long build up to the love scene is fantastic. The scene itself features no background music, focusing only on their sounds and reactions. The underlying theme in their love scene (that an unsatisatisfied women realizes that she needs to take the more agressive role in a sexual encounter to enjoy it) is also really nice. Add to that fact that the scene ends with an orgasm, something which hardly happens at all in films like this (almost as if filmakers are afraid to show a woman having one), and you have a must see film.
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Vashti:
Build-up: 5 Kissing: 5 Love-scenes: 4 Movie overall: 5
A professor from New York (Helen Shaver) goes to Reno to get a divorce. She has to stay a few weeks in order for it to go through. While there, she meets the daughter (Patricia Charbonneau) of her landlady, a wild, reckless young woman who works in a local casino. Slowly, they warm to one another, and have a passionate affair at the end of the movie.
This is my favorite lesbian-themed film of all time. It had very high production values, great soundtrack and the actresses were good-looking and intelligent. The first kiss and the love scene at the end were beautifully done, realistic without being too explicit, and, well, hot! I interviewed Helen Shaver for a newspaper article, and she was not embarrassed about it, and didn't mind the gay following the film had. It's a lovely little movie.
Fay:
Build-up: 3 Kissing: 3 Love-scenes: 4 Movie overall: 3
One of my all time favourite lesbian movies. The two ladies are a delight to behold as they slowly become closer until the wonderful love scene and both actresses did excellent jobs potraying their characters. A must for all lesbian film fans.
hartwall:
Build-up: 5 Kissing: 4 Love-scenes: 5 Movie overall: 5
This is definitely an all-time classic!!! And it's my favourite lesbian movie. What I like most is that the erotic tention which is building up between both women is described and shown in a very sensitive and realistic way. And watching two naturely gorgeous women, who are so different from these usual model bimbos out of silicon valley, kissing and making love in a very passionate way is definitely more erotic than most of these b-class sexmovies.
Kitty:
Build-up: 4 Kissing: 4 Love-scenes: 4 Movie overall: 4
This is such a sweet film. The actresses have a lot of chemistry and although there's nothing really THAT shocking about what they do, it was probably ground-breaking at the time. It's nice! There are probably better lesbian films around, but this one is always going to be a classic because it was the first. And it's pretty good to watch anyway :)
Jahan:
Build-up: 3 Kissing: 3 Love-scenes: 3 Movie overall: 3
The build up to Shaver and Charbonneau becoming lovers just takes to long and by the time they finally do, the movie is almost over! If you rent this movie I'd suggest fastforwarding through certain parts of this movie.
jcmf:
Build-up: 4 Kissing: 3 Love-scenes: 5 Movie overall: 5
I *love* this movie, if for no other reason than that I came out w/in 24 hours after seeing it! ;-)
Patricia Charbonneau is a total hottie, but this is really Helen Shaver's film. Her incredibly expressive face makes her whole journey of sexual discovery intensely involving. (Correction to the synopsis above: that's *Shaver's* character's orgasm we're seeing and hearing---though Charbonneau gets a small climactic moment at the start of the subsequent scene.)
Admittedly, there is a lot of clunky dialogue in the movie. Charbonneau's character's stepmother chews the scenery relentlessly and, with the exception of the fun country-singer/"best pal" role, no one else makes much of an impression.
However, the film's faults are far outweighed by its many charms: Shaver and Charbonneau, of course, but also its visually rich cinematography, and its *terrific* musical score (Which, if you listen closely, plays almost a Greek-chorus role in commenting on the story). 1950's Reno turns out to be a perfect setting for bringing together seemingly disparate musical worlds (much like the main characters'?) of country and rock-and-roll, western swing and eastern jazz-and-blues.
One really cannot say enough about (openly lesbian) director Donna Deitch (visible in a tiny walk-on role as a "Hungarian gambler") in putting this movie together, in 1985 or any other year. This movie is truly a classic (w/ an outstanding love scene), which only gets better w/ time.
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