Peter Larney, Valentina Tammaro, and Amy Lyndon in Lady Parts.
Ever since she was a teenager, Paige (Valentina Tamarro) has experienced intense pain—y’know, down there. She’s never been able to use tampons and sex is completely out of the question. Because of this, she has a string of sexually frustrated ex-boyfriends who call her crazy, and an even longer string of doctors that tell her she just needs to relax or exercise more or it’s all in her head. She finally finds the right doctor and puts a name to her problem: vulvar vestibulitis, pain in her vulva caused by exposed nerve endings. The only treatment is surgery, which the doc recommends she get as soon as possible, and which will leave her on bed rest for six weeks followed by a year of physical therapy. And the timing couldn’t be worse: after years of toughing it out in L.A. trying to make it as a screenwriter, she finally gets her first big opportunity in showbiz. But the pain really is unbearable, so she turns down her dream job and moves back in with her parents (Amy Lyndon, Peter Larney) back in Philly until she’s recovered. Maybe once she gets her health taken care of, she’ll get a second chance?
Writer Bonnie Gross based Lady Parts on her own personal experience, and while it’s been slightly fictionalized, that lived experience shines through throughout this movie. And that openness and honesty carries over to the central performances: Tammaro lights up the screen as Paige; sarcastic, funny, self-deprecating, awkward, with a laugh that’s big and genuine and infectious. Lyndon as her mother is warm, endearing, but also more than a little mischievous, and Larney as the dad is good-natured and loving but frequently out of his depth. All three actors are simply great, and play so well off of each other that you quickly start to feel like a member of the family.
There are so many things about this movie that are refreshing that it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s start with the lack of interpersonal conflict: Paige’s parents drive her nuts, but only in the way that all parents do, and while other people are sources of irritation (crappy doctors, vapid woo-girl friends, jerkface ex-boyfriends, nosey neighbors she hasn’t seen since high school), none of them are really antagonists—it’s just Paige against her desires, forced to take a step back from chasing her dream to get healthy first and all the highs and lows and improvements and frustrations along the way. It’s also refreshing how open and honest the movie is about women’s health, about how their issues are ignored and belittled (even by women doctors!) and how sexual health in particular is so often treated as something to be whispered about using childish language about “lady parts” rather than tackling the issues head on. That it can manage to tackle such serious subjects with so, so many laughs makes the medicine go down easy.
There is, of course, a boy Paige meets when she goes home—Cody (Lars Midthun), a customer at the coffee shop Paige gets a job at to kill time who also dreams of being a writer though, with the glimpses of his cheesy sci-fi epic that we get to see, he has a long way to go to get to Paige’s level. On one hand, Cody’s arrival does a great job of showing Paige’s growth and change as a character. But on the other, as the film reaches its conclusion his actions sometimes feel like just a way to gin up a bit of more stereotypical movie drama, and that manipulativeness feels a bit at odds with a movie that otherwise feels so real and lived in. The romance subplot isn’t a total miss—Midthun and Tamarro have chemistry, and again, it really gives her character an opportunity to come out of her shell—but it sometimes feels like a missed opportunity.
But that’s a minor complaint. This movie is simply great—great dialogue, great performances, and it tackles vital topics that too often get ignored but does so in a way that’s fun and funny and warm and uplifting and totally unforgettable. | Jason Green
Lady Parts will screen at the Chase Park Plaza Cinema (212 Kingshighway Blvd.) on Saturday, November 16 at 6:30 pm as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival 2024. It will screen as a double feature with the short film “Before You.” Single film tickets are $15 for general admission, $12 for Cinema St. Louis members and students with valid current photo IDs. Further information is available here.
