When Nancy Boyd’s Lady Parts was just about to begin, I will admit, I was a little bit nervous. I’m a 52-year-old male and the opening of the movie which indicates the central female character is shown to be suffering from acute pain in her vagina, does not start things funnily. And since this is a comedic film, there are heaps of jokes that are made at her expense. At the Sidewalk Film Festival, I found myself amongst mostly females who were amused by humor involving tampons, vulva and labia, menstrual cycles, dilators, vibrators, gynecological procedures, and my new favorite vulvar vestibulectomy which was funny but definitely made me wince.
The movie, to its credit, calms down a tad. It never wimps out or straddles the fence in the comical torrent of jokes about mensuration and dilation, however, what begins as a silly farce eventually becomes a warm tale of a family coming together. Our protagonist Paige, Valentina Tammaro plays well because she has a bright open face which is comic in itself. She has an embarrassing problem She has a few down there. It is like, excruciating, all the time. The treatment of her condition is limited to one thing surgery. In this case, the surgery is an experimental procedure called a vulvar vesitbulectomy, which her insurer would refuse to cover. Even worse, this will immobilize her for a year, subjecting her to recuperation. Still worse, she has just received an offer for a writer’s assistant job, for which she has been striving for several years. However, in doing so, she would have to place her life on hold as she relocates from Los Angeles to her parent’s house in Philadelphia to undergo surgery and afterward recuperate at the home of the overly encouraging but Andrew and Linda, played by Peter Larney and Amy Lyndon.
What is reassuring is that even if the movie is very entertaining, it is not silly. Due to its structure, I have walked into the movie expecting a considerable amount of television-type humor with lame ever dull jokes about myopic doctors and awkward humor self-deprecation. The embarrassment is evident here, but it is crafted in a way that one can appreciate the fact that writer Bonnie Gross has a mind for comics; she knows just how far to go and when to stop.
She also has the ability to add life to her characters. Drawing from her experience, she casts the mother’s role in the first place as too sympathetic, but she is also kind. While we are amused by jokes about pelvic examinations, yes, there is a sense of human, but, again, a sense that is carefully managed so that it doesn’t become too mushy. It is a film that is very well structured, you are chuckling but emotionally invested in the plot. There is development in the case of Paige. A lot of them begin with uncomfortable humor and progress towards a dramedy centered on family, relations, and embracing one’s body as it is. The development of the plot alleviates our unease. I won’t spoil the last scene but, the resolution is humorous and it is also quite emotional.
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