Maple Palm

Maple Palm boasts a 1.8/10 user rating on IMDb. This makes it IMDb’s lowest rated WLW film. But I disagree. Slightly. Maple Palm absolutely deserves its 1.8 rating. But it’s not the worst WLW movie I’ve ever seen. There’s exactly four WLW movies that are worse than it.

The film is a transparent plea for gay rights. Specifically regarding immigration. Lesbian couple Nicole and Amy have been together for 15 years. Amy is also chronically ill and disabled. Their low-key life in California is interrupted by a rogue ICE agent named Glen. You see, Nicole is Canadian and thus, an illegal alien in The United States. It seems like America can no longer be a home to this couple. Reluctantly, Nicole and Amy decide to leave their home in favour of Canada. However, the situation with Glen escalates further when the detain him using a pair of handcuffs.

Maple Palm is a blatant “message” film. The message? Gay people deserve immigration and marriage rights in the United States. Obviously, I agree. But even I think this film is heavy-handed and a poor plea for equality. Every single character in this film is idiotic and unlikable. That’s fine when it’s ICE agent Glen. But Nicole and Amy also absolutely suck. Nicole specifically keeps escalating the situation. What was initially just a matter of citizenship gets way out of hand. Nicole not only forcibly detains him but assaults him. The handcuffed Glen makes a sexual pass at her and Nicole pretends to go along with it just long enough so she can hit him hard in the genitals. You’re not helping your case, Nicole! I’m supposed to be on the side of gay rights and liberty. But even I think Nicole probably needs to go to jail.

There is simply not enough depth for this to work as a story. The characters are shallow and two-dimensional. Glen is such an over the top adversary. He couldn’t exist as a character without this specific situation because nothing about him exists beyond being a adversarial plot point. Nicole and Amy’s motivations for staying in the US don’t get any depth. Even Glen asks them why they were so stupid about how they went about this. And when they discuss moving to Canada, there don’t seem to be any negatives. Healthcare costs less there and lesbians can get married. They talk up Canada so much while their lives in The United States seem to offer no positives. The only argument they have is, “America is our home.” Amy also has a bad case of sick woman syndrome. She’s got whatever symptoms are most dramatic for that particular scene.

And for all that Maple Palm is a plea for gay rights, it delves hard into homophobic stereotypes in film. If it’s a lesbian movie trope you’re tired of seeing, it’s here! Is there a needless and exploitative sex scene? Yep! In the first handful of minutes. Is there a looming threat of sexual assault! Absolutely! Glen gets overly handsy and makes multiple passes at Nicole. Of course, she retaliates by pretending to be into it just to cause him harm. Something pretty much no woman would actually do in the situation. Most importantly, Maple Palm ends with lesbian death. Nobody will care about the struggles of these gays if we don’t douse them in tragedy! Quick, kill one of them! That’ll make our point.

Maple Palm has the worst editing I’ve seen in a WLW film. The construction of this story is shockingly poor. The film has four characters and basically, one location. Yet it manages to be confusing with its cuts. There’s also a staggering amount of padding. Tons of establishing shots that feel more like a slideshow than part of a film. It also has a pretty persistent soundtrack. It’s a very 2006 collection of songs. A few angsty rock songs but mostly uninspired acoustic guitar ballads. The film will stop dead to just do a lame music video of Nicole looking sad while music plays. But at least the funnelled in pre-recorded musical tracks sound better than the sound mixing on the dialogue. Maple Palm’s screenplay was already shit, but whoever edited the film tanked it further. This is such a bad movie to look at.

So, Maple Palm isn’t quite the worst WLW film I’ve ever seen. But it’s in the bottom five. There’s nothing to recommend about the film. I actually wished it was an anti-gay film. Because it’s funny when a position I disagree with produces extraordinarily bad art. That’s a good and funny time. It’s just disappointing when it’s a message you agree with and then the art surrounding it is so indefensible. If you want to make a good “message” film, it’s gotta be a good film. Maple Palm is the exact opposite of a good film.

Overall rating: 1.6/10

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