Young love seems to be the most intense. Just look at Romeo and Juliet. Or the tortured teenaged lesbian lovers of Lea Pool’s gorgeous and affecting Lost and Delirious. In an all-girls boarding school, an aggressive, sharp-witted girl named Paulie (Piper Perabo) becomes involved with her roommate, the beautiful and charismatic Tory (Jessica Pare). Their romance is mutual, deep … and doomed: after being caught in the act by Tory’s little sister, Tory insists upon playing straight from then on, refusing Paulie and dating a boy. Eventually, this sends the determined and open Paulie into a tortured, destructive rampage that could result in physical danger—to herself and any who get in the way.
Yet as full of intensity and emotion Lost and Delirious may be, it’s been significantly toned down from its infinitely darker source novel, Susan Swan’s The Wives of Bath. For one thing, the young, impressionable character of Mouse (Mischa Barton), newcomer roommate of Paulie and Tory and whose eyes we see their story through, was a hunchback in the book. And lovelorn Paulie’s descent into misery and desperate acts (her mantra is “Rage more!”) originally climaxed with cutting the penis off a kindly gardener and Krazy Gluing it to herself.
“I was surprised but not so surprised,” says Pool of Judith Thompson’s toned-down script. “But did you know the [penis cutting situation] was a true story? [Swan] put together a boarding school background with a true story of a girl cutting off a penis and attaching it to herself.”
Pool adds that the hunchback element would have distracted from the more involving “impossible love” story of Paulie and Tory. And beyond the foreseeable difficulties in procuring an MPAA rating, Pool says a less gruesome ending—and character of Paulie—was crucial since most of society still judges gays based upon the images they see onscreen, and Bath’s original vision could result in people continuing to think that lesbians “are all psycho.”
“Every story is possible but we are not in a context right now to make a film like this,” she insists. “Message is perhaps a big word, but for sure I would like young people, straight people, and of course parents to see this film, [so they will learn to] love and help their kids and accept where they are in their lives and not want them to be another person. I hope films like this will make it easier for new generations because it’s terrible what happens to Paulie in the end.”
For French Canadian director Pool, who lives in Montreal, Lost and Delirious entailed a change in the way she had worked for