Desert Hearts

While awaiting her divorce on a dude ranch outside Reno, a stiff and humorless New York City professor learns to appreciate life from the usual assortment of Silver State oddballs, finally letting her hair down for a young, uninhibited employee of one of the local casinos. It might have been just another routine romantic comedy but for the fact that the two lovers are both women, and the novelty value alone is enough to lift the film out of the ordinary. There's enough charm and offhand humor to match any mainstream, hetero romance, but make no mistake: this movie doesn't regard its lesbianism lightly, and there's an explicit bedroom interlude to prove it. The scene stops the film dead in its tracks, but director Donna Deitch (making her feature debut) has to be commended for approaching the subject with such candor and optimism (some of it a bit forced, to be sure), leaning only slightly on the awkward self-awareness usually found in a Hollywood coming-out story.