Everything Relative

Everything Relative’s biggest strength is also the thing holding it back. The film focuses on a very specific subsection of people. This leads to the ideal audience for the film also being members of that very specific subsection. If you aren’t a white political lesbian feminist who went to university, I’m not sure how much this film has to offer. I actually am all of those things. But even for me, not all of this film is wholly successful. It’s of a very specific time as well. And because it’s no longer 1996, even my gay, feminist, university educated white ass didn’t connect to some of it.

Everything Relative is about a group of old college friends meeting up for a reunion about 20 years after graduation. Victoria, Sarah, Josie, Gina, Maria and Katie all went to a women’s college and forged a close friendship. Also, all but one of them identifies as a lesbian or at least, attracted to women. The web of current and past relationships between the women is impossible to map. While they’ve drifted since college, all eagerly agree to the reunion. 20 years on, the friends discuss what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. They also grapple with the fact that one of the members of their group in college didn’t live long enough to see this reunion.

Everything Relative expertly utilizes its ensemble cast. There are about a half dozen main characters here. And all of them get a full story arc. The screen time feels evenly balanced between each character. They all get moments to shine. It’s also impressive that each woman has an individual personality. As friends, they obviously have a lot in common. As I mentioned earlier, they all belong to a pretty specific subsection of people. But each character still has not just a unique individual story but a unique personality and ways of reacting to situations.

Everything Relative draws attention to the political goals of this story. In doing so, it leaves the door open for the audience to critique their politics. These women’s experiences with queerness are pretty informed by them being able bodied, college educated and in the case of all but one, white. While talking about how they met, the women proudly discuss how they met in a “very political class” which was half black students and half white students. One of them declares that Maria, a latina woman as, “somewhere in the middle”. I largely don’t question a lack of diversity in WLW films, especially older ones. But if you’re going to specifically bring it up, then I’m going to ask how a class with an even amount of black and white students spawned a friend group of 6 white women and one latina whose experiences are often ignored.

One thing I think Everything Relative wants to offer is a sense of community to its viewers. Maybe you don’t have six friends you vacation with. But the film offers you that same feeling. However, I’m not sure the film realizes how limited that invitation is. Everything Relative was made around the dawn of third wave feminism. Its characters went to university around the second wave. Intersectionality became a third wave feminism buzzword. Because of the time it was made, that concept is largely missing in Everything Relative. It’s great that these women have found a sisterhood of people with whom they have similar shared experiences. But in these women largely agreeing with each other on what the problems are and what their identity is, they leave a lot on the table because it doesn’t fit into any of their lived experience.

Sorry, I’ve gone off course and started exploring larger issues of feminism and representation. Back to whether the film’s good or bad. Ultimately, it’s fine. I admire the film more than I actually enjoy it. I’m impressed by Everything Relative‘s balancing of a large cast of characters. There’s also good moments of both comedy and drama. However, this is far from a universal story. This was a film made from within a community. There’s an expectation that the audience also comes from within that community. But the community this film is made for sort of doesn’t exist anymore. So then you’re just left with the question of politics aside, do you want to spend time with these six fictional women? And that’s a hard question to answer when these six fictional women exist in a story that is inherently political.

Overall rating: 5.8/10

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