Lesbian Nuns at Broad Theater

It all starts with a text from my friend, Trent, who wants to know if I would be interested in attending a screening with him at The Broad in a few hours. This is a bit unusual because it’s a Wednesday and Trent’s a busy career boy during the week. But he explains that he has this dreadful sense that the Covid is about to act up again in a big way and wants to see as many movies in the theater before that happens (this is back in early December, when Omnicron is still only a whisper, something happening in far off countries across the oceans. Of course, that’s exactly how this whole mess started in the first place so obviously Trent has every reason to be worried… and of course, he’s right). 

It takes me less than half a second to accept this invitation. In fact, I’m downright giddy to do so. Not only is The Broad my favorite theater in the city, I also live a mere three blocks away from it. And I’m constantly kicking myself for not going there enough. Sure, I could blame it on covid, but I still should be going more than I am. 

Fast forward a couple of hours and I’m making my walk to the theater. I have my notebook under my arm as my plan is to get there a bit early so I can grab a drink at the bar and do some writing before the show (yes of course my favorite theater has a bar, what’s your point?). As I’m making this walk, I become aware of just how excited I am. I realize my level of giddiness is a bit too high for such a rather mundane event. Sure, it’s always fun to go see a movie at the spur of the moment with a friend, but man, I’m just really, really feeling it. 

Why is that, I wonder? 

And then the answer hits me and makes me a bit sad. It’s because we’ve been in a pandemic for two years and we’re still at the point where small fun things that used to be mundane are now rather special affairs.  

But I’m not gonna let covid ruin my vibe. I continue my stroll to Broad while thinking about the movie we’re about to see. Actually, that’s another piece of the excitement right there, I don’t know a damn thing about the movie. I’m going in blind. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. Trent told me the name and the director. Benedetta is the title and Paul Verhoven is the director. The title meant absolutely nothing to me, but the director means a whole helluva lot. I’m a fan of old Verhoven, I wouldn’t say I love of all his movies- Hollowman was terrible, but Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, and Robocop are all quality, and Showgirls is just horribly amazing in the best (worst) way possible.  But more importantly, I would say I’m a fan of how his reputation for being a rather crazy bastard who can make a crazy bastard movie when he feels like it. 

So as soon as Trent tells me this was one of his works, I immediately decide not to do any research. Just go in blind and pray for something either amazing, crazy, amazingly crazy, or crazily, amazingly awful. And just the anticipation of this makes me happy to be alive. 

We all need our surprises in life, right?    

I arrive at The Broad just a minute before six, Trent said the movie started at six thirty, so I have a whole half hour to sip on a decent amber at the bar while writing some ideas out in my notebook. Things are good. 

As I enter the lobby I’m reminded of why I love this place so much. It has a very ‘treehouse’ vibe to it, if you know what I mean. Like a DIY cinema house. It sort of feels like a bunch of your friends took over an abandoned warehouse or mansion and converted it into a theater. I love it.

I strut down the lobby to the bar, taking in the classic sight, sound and smell of a movie theater, and it’s all fantastic, until I come face-to-face with the ticket booth. Well, it’s not really a booth or kiosk, it’s more just a wooden desk with a person behind it waiting to take your money (like I said, treehouse vibe). And behind her, hanging on the wall, is a large chalkboard that has all the showtimes written out in classic white chalk. And this is what gives me pause. Because I see Benedetta up there, and I see the times it’s running, but what I don’t see is a 6:30 showtime. I see a 5:25 showtime and one for 7:15, but that’s it. 

Confused, I call Trent.

“Weird,” he tells me after I explain what I’m seeing on the big chalkboard, “it said 6:30 on Fandango. Well, I’ll be over there soon enough and we’ll figure it out. Just hang tight.”

So I hang tight at the bar, enjoying my beer while writing my words of wisdom down. Around me, a light crowd of movie goers are buzzing around me, ordering drinks, snacks, or popcorn, or waiting for the bathroom, or playing in the small arcade in the far corner.

I’ve missed this, I thought to myself. 

Trent shows up ten minutes later and together we go to the ticket desk and he pulls out his phone, showing the ticket lady the fandango showtimes and explains the conflict. To this day, I remember exactly how she reacts because it continues to baffle me. She looks down at the phone, nods a bit, and casually remarks:

 “oh yeah, Fandango’s right, we’re wrong.”

Now, I just want to make sure y’all understand what is happening. This woman, who works at the theater, whose job it is to sell people tickets to the shows that plays at precise times, is telling us that the showtime listed behind her in chalk…on a chalkboard, is showing the incorrect time and the correct time is on some mainstream website that’s not associated with the theater in any way. I’ll never forget Trent and I sharing a quick look of what the fuck is going on here…but neither one of us ask the obvious question: Why the hell don’t you just pick up the eraser and chalk behind you and correct the mistake in two seconds?? Maybe we didn’t ask because it was so charmingly absurd we didn’t want to dive any deeper and instead just leave it be. 

In any case, a minute later we both have our tickets and we enter the first theater on the left as instructed at about 6:10, twenty minutes before the movie would be starting…according to one source at least. 

When we enter we find we have the theater completely to ourselves. Trent remarks that it’s entirely possible no one else shows up at all and we can have a little mystery science theater action tonight. Sounds great to me. 

But these hopes are dashed a few minutes later by a young lesbian couple who come in holding hands and cocktails. Oh well, we won’t be the only ones here, no shouting at the movie even if it does turn out to be a dud. No biggie.

About two minutes later, another couple of women walk in, who are also holding hands. This is when I raise an eyebrow. It could be entirely coincidental, but maybe, just maybe, the demographic of the rest of the moviegoers- as few of them as there are- holds insight to the kind of movie we’re about to watch. 

A few more minutes pass, and a group of six enter, five women and one man. 

Interesting… 

Around 6:25, five minutes before the start of the show, there are, including the two of us, about twenty people here. Now this is a pretty tiny theater, all things considered. I’d say at max it could hold 70-80 people. So even in this tiny theater, all the various groups of people are able to spread out from one another so that no one is breathing on each other, which is nice. Everyone is able to comfortably huddle around their own people and make small talk and sip their drinks while waiting for the movie to start. And these little idle conversations fill up the theater and bring a great energy along with them. 

This could be pure speculation, but I felt like the twenty of us are feeling the same way as I was when I was strolling from my place to the theater, just sort of happy to be doing this sort of thing, even if it’s a small thing, because it is fun and reassuring and most of us haven’t done anything like this in some time and we humans are social creatures dammit! We need to have some good times amongst our own species. 

And so even though the crowd wasn’t interacting with each other as a whole, these micro-interactions felt like a warm blanket that covered the whole place.  

Five minutes later, I’d say about another seven or so people show up. Aside from a few men, it’s all women. 

Now at this point Trent and I are having a great time just catching up, gossiping, laughing and drinking our cocktails. It’s so much fun in fact that when I check the time and realize the film is suppose to start at any moment I actually feel resentful. I’m having a lot of fun pre-gaming with other humans and I don’t really want it to end. 

…and it doesn’t. Another five minutes go by and the lights stay on and the screen stays off. A few more people show up and take seats. Trent and I continue to catch up.

Another five minutes pass after that, it’s now 6:40, still nothing changes except a couple more people show up. 

Another five minutes pass after that, and again nothing. At this point, it’s been fifteen minutes since the movie was supposed to start, so Trent and I finally talk about it, and either him or I bring up the obvious possibility.

“What if the lady at the front was wrong, and Fandango was wrong, and the chalkboard was right, and this movie doesn’t start til 7:15?” 

We sort of shrug our shoulders. Whatever, We were both having fun at the moment, it’s all good. This seems to be the vibe of the whole place. I haven’t heard one angry or confused word from anyone around us, and nobody walks out in a huff to complain, as far as I can tell. Again, it seems like just happy to be doing this again. 

Another ten minutes pass. It’s 6:55. Again, nothing has changed except another eight or so new people have shown up. The theater is probably a little more than half full now. Vibe is still wonderful.

Ten more minutes pass. Lights still on. People are still talking, no one seems upset. 

Ten more minutes pass. It’s now 7:15, and according to the dubious chalkboard, the show should start now. 

But nothing happens. 

Five more minutes pass, nothing. Nobody cares. 

FIve more minutes pass. Same. 

Five more minutes pass, I ask the guy closest to me if we’re in the right movie theater. He confirms we are. We laugh about it, neither one of us is too worried, still flowing. Still vibing. 

Five more minutes pass. It is now 7:35. The lights are still fucking on. And still nobody storms off to complain. 

FInally, at 7:40, twenty five minutes after the chalkboard time, and a full hour and ten minutes since Fandango time, the lights dim. The crowd responds with only a slight murmur of the approval and I hear the woman behind me say, “oh, so we are gonna see a movie tonight, cool.” She said this like she would have been happy either way. And you know what dammit, I totally felt her on that. I suddenly realize I’m n a crowd full of anti-Karens, how amazing.

So after a few trailers run, the movie begins. At this point I’m just praying it’s not a boring piece of drek by some over-the-hill director. Please, I beg to the movie gods, either let it be a quaility, engaging film- like Total Recall- or let it be a piece of amazing schlock like Showgirls. Just don’t let it be dull.  

In the first couple of minutes, a number of things become clear. The movie is a period piece, set in the sixteen hundreds in France. Two, it’s a foreign film, french with english subtitles. Fine by me. And three, the entire movie takes place in a nunnery. Cool. 

But it’s around minute five that I feel the entire audience around breathe a collective sigh of relief, as it becomes clear that this is a quality film. It usually doesn’t take very long to ascertain if a movie is a bomb or not, and this is no exception. The acting, dialog, cinematography, pacing, are all top notch. 

Thank God. 

It’s around minute ten that we realize this movie focuses on a pair of lesbian nuns who live in the nunnery and secretly strive for each other as well as political power within the convent (I say we, but obviously it might have just been me who didn’t know that. The only reason I say we is because, as you’ll soon find out, there were some clues later on that none of us in the crowd knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into).   

So fifteen minutes into the film, the vibe of the theater is pretty good. Everyone seems happy and relieved this is a good flick. Aaaaand then the first sex scene begins and all I can say is wow. 

 This is no ordinary Hollywood love scene. This is real. And yet ridiculous. It’s an amazing combination of both real and ridiculous and I don’t know how Verhoven pulled it off. I’m telling you, this was so good, so titillating, it made you wish porn was made the same way. It starts out slow and erotic, with warm foreplay of flickering fingers and tongues that get progressively more and more investigative as the scene plays out. Passionate, raw, just a tad violent and at times, schizophrenic. I’m telling you, this is a Basic-Instinct-on-steroids kind of love scene. 

Now you may be reading this and thinking to yourself: Well, you just sounds like a vanilla square straight man who doesn’t know shit about erotic queer cinema. And okay, you may have a point there (although I did take some obscure film classes in college that might surprise you). But here’s my counter point., the rest of the audience is completely taken aback as well. and listening to the crowd’s reaction is an experience I won’t soon forget. As you all know by now, I came into this film knowing just about nothing. But, and this is a bit of speculation I admit, I highly suspect the rest of the crowd is in the same boat. Oh sure, they probably knew it was a period piece about gay women, I’ll grant you that, but I honestly don’t think they knew much more than that. It isn’t like this film is getting heavily promoted in the US, nor is it getting a lot of attention online. 

But I’m really basing my speculation off their reaction to that first love scene, which I could only describe as blushing personified. I mean I can almost feel the heat emanating from the pure red rosy cheeks around me. And before you think me judgmental, just know my cheeks are just as hot. I’m telling you, it was quite the scene. And it just sorta kept going on and on, becoming more intense with each passing moment. To the point where the aisles were filling up with shocked titters and gasps. I swear at one point, I heard the lady behind me whisper to no one in particular:

 “Oh my heavens…”

SHE LITERALLY WHISPERED OH MY HEAVENS LIKE A SHOCKED 1950s LIBRARIAN. And that’s pretty much the entire vibe of the whole theater. We are all sort of just reeling at this unexpected development and loving it in a “oh wow so this is happening” way. 

…little did any of us know that out of the many love scenes in the film, this first one would be the tamest…

The movie’s about two hours and fifteen minutes long. In that time, a fantastic story starts and ends, with a great number of twists and turns, quality acting, spot on dialog, and damn impressive cinematography. This was a god damn Oscar worthy film, without question. 

 …and interjected throughout this two hours and fifteen minutes of Oscar worthy cinema, are five or six of the most erotic and raunchy sex scenes I’ve ever seen in a non-pornographic movie. And each scene is progressively more erotic than the last. Ending with (spoilers) one of the lovers carving a dildo out of a mini wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and using it with vigor and abandon on the main character. 

By this point the crowd of mousy, well-behaved folks around me have transformed into what I can only describe as a lesbian Hooters on a Friday night. Those meek ‘oh my heavens’ have transformed into loud and proud cheers of unquestionable sexual support. My favorite of these cheers has to come from the one lady down in the front row who literally screams during the final blasphemous love scene:

“Fuck Jesus! Go get that pussy!” 

I’m telling you, the last twenty minutes are a cacophony of catcalls and rabble rousing, the whole theater is just melting away into a puddle of nun-love and delirium. Beyond a doubt, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a theater in a long, long time.

And in a weird sort of way I felt like we all went through that experience together as a group, not knowing what to expect, blushing and giggling at first, and catcalling later, and it all just feels like a wonderful team-building exercise that no corporate outing could ever hope to duplicate. 

I do not exaggerate when I say by the time the credits hit everyone jumps to their feet to give the film a raucous, standing ovation. Now, I’ve always been told that only the most Neanderthalic type of movie-goer would dare clap at the end of a movie. 

“The actors can’t hear you, moron,’ as my college friend Jeff used to say. I would bet anything the crowd around me follows the same principle for most of their adult lives. And yet, there we are, standing on our feet clapping for those that will never hear us, for those who will never know that they gave us an amazing two hours where we completely forgot about our own personal struggles, and Covid, and the state of the world. Paul Verhoven, that magnificent, crazy bastard, brought us into his world so we could escape our own.

And for that, we are all grateful. 

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