A Perfect Ending (2012)

Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This movie is definitely designed for women, unlike many lesbian or bisexual films which target the male gaze. This film is delightfully erotic and yet filled with meaningful passion. It is a great watch for actual lesbians/bisexuals/queer-identifying women and has an empowering message about taking control over one's life. I was brought to tears by this complex story of pain and healing through love. If you are fond of cheesy romance and family intrigue, this is the right movie. Jessica Clark's character, Paris, is both a captivating and eloquent goddess. Be warned: You may fall for her. The protagonist is earnest and relatable, perhaps a bit cliché. Nevertheless, if you're a softie and in the mood for something a little unrealistic as far as lesbian/bi/queer romances go, I would recommend this movie.

I am new to the work of Nicole Conn. A Perfect Ending is a beautifully crafted piece of work, and I got completely engrossed and enveloped into the story from the outset.The two leading actors, Barbara Niven and Jessica Parker, gave exemplary performances, and were completely convincing in their portrayal of Rebecca and Paris, respectively. The whole feel of the film was beautiful, atmospheric, and crafted in such a touching and realistic way.I live in the UK and haven't seen much of Barbara Niven's work; however, she is a really beautiful and talented actress, and the part of Rebecca was brought to life by her brilliant acting and interpretation of the part of Rebecca. There is also a big age difference between her and Jessica Clark (some 30 years!), but that goes completely by the board when you see them together. Every time they were on the screen together, there was a palpable chemistry between them; making the whole thing very believable and gorgeous to watch.It certainly gets a big thumbs up from me.

I sympathize with the main character, her husband is a terrible man and lover. However this movie has typical feminist moments and serious man hating. I have noticed in some if not most feminist films, the horrible husband is always the same. A privileged woman, who does not work and understand the stress of being a constant provider. Of course he is also a typical child predator as he assaults his daughter. Its like they portray every man as a sexually mature 5 year old that just does not get female sexuality. The sons are emasculated and the one good man , Paris's ex husband is very effeminate. Why can't lesbians just make a movie about there love and erotica, with out saying men are all inferior lovers and there the true gatekeepers of love and intimacy. Besides that though there are many good points to the movie I wish they would have emphasized on. I do like the tension as the main character finally tells her best friends her deepest secret. I do like the build up of the conflict she has, where she wants to have sex with Paris intensly but is torn up in contradiction. Though the drama is overdone and a bit sappy to the point of frustration and comedy. It took her 3- 4 times to finally have sex with Paris and when they did it was great, really erotic and hot and displaying all that repressed emotion. I think I would give this movie a 6, but take away 4 for all the man hating stereotypes. Otherwise I would have given this movie a 9 or 10. Come on lets do better and stop making so many man hating movies.

This is just one of the most irritatingly pretentious movies I've ever seen. If you're an upper-class white person with no real problems and you can only relate to human sexuality, though, maybe this movie will appeal to you.Barbara Niven plays a rich white woman who is sexually repressed and stuck in an unhappy second marriage with a cartoonishly evil business owner. Her one trait is that she's uptight and her husband's one trait is that he's evil. No one in this movie gets to have more than one trait.She confesses to her friends - two happily-married women - that she's never had an orgasm. They recommend an all- female brothel for her to contact so that she can finally know what it means to enjoy herself in bed. She ends up with Paris, played by Jessica Park, who is admittedly gorgeous but is once again limited to one trait - in this case, being sexy. For the entirety of the film she speaks slowly and in a low whisper.Her character is key to some of the film's most desperate attempts to be artsy. We get shots of her in a fetal position on a white void because the movie wants to show that she's damaged and has personal trauma. Rather than letting this come out through Clark's performance it's shoved down the audience's throat with this obnoxious imagery repeatedly, with different degrees of blatant symbolism each time. We also get embarrassing soap opera-like flashbacks to Paris' memories of her old lover, done with soft-focused and slowed footage to make them extra-hard to watch. We don't get a sense of their relationship, really; we're just being told that it was good because look, they're smiling! They're laughing! Everything's fuzzy and slow-motion so it's gotta be nice, right?The embarrassing film school stuff is just par for the course in this movie, though. There's jump cuts all throughout the movie and they feel almost random. It's like the director saw one of Jean-Luc Goddard's movies and figured that good, artsy movies MUST have jump cuts because his films had them. They really make parts of this movie hard to watch because it just feels like the editing's a mess.And of course there's all of the melodrama. Everything important in this movie is underscored with horrible, generic piano and string synths telling you what you're supposed to be feeling. It gets really silly when one character orgasms and there's synth flutes and choir voices hitting high notes to hammer the point home. It's just another part of the movie that feels really forced and cartoonish. It makes the sex scenes embarrassing to watch.The romantic chemistry between Niven and Clark is non-existent but we're told at one point that they might be falling in love. 90% of their on-screen interactions are purely sexual and yet with nearly zero character development we're supposed to find their relationship meaningful. We don't really get the chance to see these two characters outside of the bedroom and when they talk, it's just endless streams of clichés about how much they enjoy each other. It feels painfully shallow. Clark's character is sexy and she's shown to have artistic talent throughout the film but she doesn't get to have a personality outside of her sexuality. We don't get a sense of what her art means to her - it's just there to make her a more attractive character. Of course, though, the film sees Niven's life changed by her relationship with Clark.The "manic pixie dream girl" is a trope in films where one bubbly, exciting girl enters a protagonist's life and solves the protagonist's problems by being such a likable, attractive person. "A Perfect Ending" merely takes that cliché and applies it to the life of a rich white woman rather than a man. It says that everything wrong with your life can be solved by a hot, sexually-available woman. But the worst thing about it is that it has the audacity to pretend that it's something more, with all of its terrible film student editing and pretentious imagery.There's much better films out there about bisexual and lesbian relationships. Blue Is The Warmest Color is a much better portrayal of a woman's sexual awakening with another woman and it's made by someone with a far superior grasp of film making. Watch that instead of this trite soap opera.