Just as director Claudia Weill states in her 2019 Criterion interview (included in the new Blu-ray edition of her 1978 debut feature film), Girlfriends turns the popular convention of most young adult coming-of-age stories on its head. By crafting a protagonist who might be chalked up to a cheeky sidekick by more popular standards, Weill projects her own sense of feminine misfit mystique onto the relatable heroine Susan (Melanie Mayron) — a young bushy-haired girl with a toothy grin, a delightfully squeaky voice, and an excellent photographic eye to match. Unlike her best friend and roommate Anne (Anita Skinner), Susan doesn’t have smooth blonde hair, flawless bone structure, or a perfectly tiny waist — which several preexisting reviews and plot summaries of Girlfriends aim to make apparent. The two best friends have just moved into a new apartment together in the heart of New York City, each struggling to come into their own artistic identities. Exciting news soon comes for both of them; Susan succeeds in selling some of her photographs to a high-profile magazine, and Anne reveals her engagement to fiancé Martin.
The film’s plot at first glance feels like a set-up acutely aimed at the hearts of women too often deemed less than desirable by this patriarchal society we still live in today, of women who might label themselves within their respective friend groups as the “last woman standing.” Except, the enduring appeal of Girlfriends might be that it is not rooted, after all, in bitterness, envy, or other forms of unnecessary competition between women. Instead, I have found that this film (one of the first of its kind) shows how women can experience personal growth by simultaneously learning how to be alone and learning how to rely on each other, in the face of all kinds of mundane and exciting obstacles and accomplishments. In fact, the clarity that comes with this newfound loneliness becomes exceedingly clear to me now, especially since my own best friend – my first non-familial roommate, with whom I feel intimately and inimitably bonded, in ways never possible with anyone else – recently became engaged.
As fate would have it, Criterion’s brand-new Blu-ray release of Girlfriends fell into my lap two months after this news. My friend’s relationship with her fiancé seems much more solid and long-lasting than the apparently sudden and unforeseen one between Anne (Anita Skinner) and Martin (Bob Balaban). And so, of course I should have expected their engagement, I should have been ready to spend a lot more nights sitting alone and venting my frustrations to no one in particular. Why, then, when she suddenly showed me the dainty diamond ring which she would soon be placing around the finger of her partner of five years, why did I stand frozen just like Susan with that fearful look of disbelief and fear hiding behind a weak smile? In Girlfriends, this painstaking loneliness becomes most apparent as Susan breaks down sobbing one night in front of her small television set. Similarly to Susan, I live vicariously through my own small screen, attempting to turn my anguish into something more palpable than fuzzy, flat figures in a film. Now, while I watch far too many movies and TV shows alone, it seems easier to use their contents as fuel for all kinds of healing and progression. There is no one to laugh at the comedies with, so I learn to laugh with myself. No longer do only the tragedies make me want to cry, and so I learn to feel more deeply than ever before.
Girlfriends helped me realize that I was unknowingly bracing myself for a strange mixture of grief and self-discovery—a critical turning point in my life as an aspiring artist, a young woman, and a human being. The film’s opening scene reminds me of the intense affection that one can hold for their platonic soulmate, as Susan strives to hold the image of Anne in the most immaculate light possible. Peacefully and beautifully sprawled across a barebones mattress upon the floor, Anne’s frame soaks up the morning sun spilling in from the window. Opportune artist that she is, Susan must capitalize on the natural beauty of this scene with the disrupting click after click of her camera. Fleeting as it may be, the light and love of the moment does not become ruptured by Anne’s sleepy grumbles. Instead of complaining, she asks Susan, “Did you dream again?… Did you have a bad dream?” Anne’s tender familiarity exposes the restless nature of Susan’s early morning photoshoot. At first, I didn’t quite catch the significance, but after repeated viewings it revealed to me why Susan was so impassioned that morning after awakening from an inferred nightmare. Perhaps, as a healing mechanism, young women often feel most motivated to create in the wake of their most tormenting experiences. Maybe that is the ideal comeback from life’s day-to-day horrors for a budding artist. But, when she doesn’t bounce back as fast as she would like, a lack of motivation quickly turns into self-doubt, or a fear of ending up alone posing as selfishness.
American culture would have us believe that life’s build-ups of such intense frustrations can only be released through creative perseverance. The pressure of capitalist ideals have especially trained us to believe that we must immediately cannibalize our suffering and use it as fuel towards future success. An artist’s creation is all they have to give to the world, so it better be worth the struggle for that creation to thrive. A woman has to be resilient in a world which makes it that much harder for her to succeed and be her authentic self. This demand for women to be exceedingly strong adds an almost insurmountable pressure, inevitably leading to feelings of overwhelming inadequacy. Sooner rather than later we become so unmoored–lost and alone in our own half-lived-in apartments–that sometimes all we can do is scream into the void. While having a tragically comedic conversation with herself, Susan’s train of melancholic thought becomes interrupted by a sudden power outage. The room darkens, the depressing record grinds to a halt, and we find out that this inconvenience serves as Susan’s last straw. “I hate it.” The mutter soon morphs into a scream. “I HATE IT!” It can be assumed that Susan refers to a hatred for her life, or at least the unexpected and unsavory direction it has taken ever since Anne’s leaving.
Recurring nightmares, the monotony of an undesirable day job, losing a best friend to someone else in the blink of an eye; all of these aggravations pile onto this pioneering artist at such a young age, but to what end? We follow Susan as she tries to fill the holes in her life with the uniquely charming yet tragically unobtainable Rabbi Gold (Eli Wallach), a projection of her lost friendship onto the free-spirited and freeloading dancer Ceil (Amy Wright), and then Eric—that wonderfully “strange, weird person of the opposite gender.” Despite the glaring fact that Girlfriends mainly focuses on the white, heterosexual experience of coming into womanhood, the film’s prevailing painful realities of lifelong friendship over time show that oftentimes friends must drift apart in order to grow as individuals.
I waited patiently for Susan’s happy ending, her redemption (or some success and self-assuredness of the like). When she goes to the countryside to confront Anne about her absence from the gallery show, an explosive encounter between the two now-distant girlfriends ensues. In her essay “Fantastic Light” (one of the two film essays on Girlfriends included in the new Blu-ray edition), Carol Gilligan elaborates on the timeless importance of this type of spirited tension between girlfriends. “Sisterhood is crucial to ending patriarchy, but genuine sisterhood is not easy; it entails conflict and challenge, engaging with difference and honest confrontation.” Susan and Anne continue to lash out at each other, and the truth as to who left whom becomes soon irrelevant as their anger and frustration melts away, revealing what remains at the core of their conflict — fear. It almost feels like the ultimate plot twist; all this time the true antagonist of Girlfriends was this basal human emotion.
After so much time apart, Susan and Anne start to remember their bond and the ways in which they’ve unknowingly helped each other succeed in their respective crafts. Reunited beside a warm fireplace, tequila and laughter abounding, months of loneliness and uncertainty and fear and love collide to form a positive affirmation of sisterhood; celebrating their bond for all of its flaws, changes, and unending strength.
My friend’s wedding will not take place for another year, but maybe our own fireside reunion will occur in due time. In the meantime, I will continue to laugh, cry, dance, and live without her sharing almost every moment with me. Thanks to Girlfriends, I am now hopeful for both of our futures, despite the different directions they appear to be going. The film makes its viewers all the more aware of the fear that surrounds themselves as well as everyone they love. This very specific sort of imposter syndrome proves to have a light at the end of its tunnel after all, and that light can be found in the eyes of Susan looking up with a tentative smile in the film’s final frame. This 70s hidden gem is an ode to both the enduring hardships of women artists and the complex resilience of sisterhood.
Criterion’s new Blu-ray edition also includes a plethora of interviews with the filmmakers, including director Claudia Weill and screenwriter Vicky Polon. Two short films have also been included: Joyce at 34, codirected by Weill and her close friend and fellow filmmaker Joyce Chopra, documents Chopra’s journey as a new mother attempting to spearhead a new filmmaking project. This short film feels like an intimate exploration of motherhood with all of its joys, wonders, and sacrifices. Commuters (directed by Claudia Weill and Eliot Noyes), another short documentary, was made in 1970 but looks and feels like it came straight out of the 1920s. It follows commuter after commuter, travelling to and from a suburban New York neighborhood. A look at transportation with a feminist lens, the short seems to creatively contrast the glamorized lives of New York businessmen with the more subdued, unassuming public transportation modes of working women. Both films contribute meaningful ideas to issues surrounding young women’s aspirations and desires that are simultaneously contradicted by their presupposed roles in society, as portrayed throughout Girlfriends.
