Desert Hearts (1985)
January 21, 2023 5:36 PM - Subscribe

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed professor of literature is unexpectedly seduced by a carefree, spirited young lesbian.
posted by skycrashesdown (5 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I really liked this one! It doesn’t have a traditional happy ending, but I would say it’s optimistic, and unlike soooooo many lesbian period pieces, no one dies!!
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:24 AM on January 22, 2023


> "... unlike soooooo many lesbian period pieces, no one dies!!"

Well, the 1964 book it's based on is widely considered as marking the beginning of the end of the period when lesbian fiction was strictly consigned to pulp paperbacks in the U.S.

(The end of the book is also, arguably, a little bit more optimistic than the end of the movie.)
posted by kyrademon at 12:01 PM on January 22, 2023 [2 favorites]


saw this in the theater, enjoyed but don't think I really understood, sorta kinda not my demo
posted by sammyo at 3:18 PM on January 22, 2023


I had forgotten that the book was that old. There's a generation of queer women who imprinted on this movie big-time, and I am convinced that this movie was one of the big sparks for the sudden surge in popularity in interest in Patsy Cline's music in the late 1980's.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:43 PM on January 23, 2023 [1 favorite]


We passed a vhs of this around like contraband, it was the only lesbian content we had ever seen as queer teens in the early ninties. I wasn't that into it, but should probably watch again. I'm fairly sure I thought of them as being very old, and I probably was way too young to get ant of the pondus in it.
posted by Iteki at 7:19 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]


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