Mildred and Doris are two middle-aged white women, from very different backgrounds, who become lovers and set up house together. Film explores the pleasures and uncertainties of later-life emotional attachment and lesbian identity in a culture that glorifies youth and heterosexual romance.
Direction
Rainer's anti-melodramatic style rejects every Hollywood romance cliché.
Acting
Merlin and Chalfant make mundanity feel like revolution.
Director
Yvonne Rainer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of 1990s New Queer Cinema's quiet cousin: films about lesbian life that refused tragic endings or coming-out drama. Rainer was already legendary in feminist film circles for her 1970s experimental work.
Kathleen Chalfant was primarily a stage actor; this rare leading film role came after decades of Broadway work. The cast includes Rainer's own daughter as Young Mildred.
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