GO FISH (Directed by Rose Troche. Starring V.S.Brodie, Guinevere Turner, T. Wendy McMillan, Migdalia Melendez, Anastasia Sharp)

Forget the sappy looks passed between Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan in When A Man Loves A Woman, for a real love story – that is a genuine evocation of desire, infatuation, flirtation and consummation – it would be hard to surpass the When A Woman Loves A Woman scenario presented in Go Fish.

Making a virtue of limited resources, writer/director Rose Troche’s delightful debut feature crosses the formal playfulness of Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It with the perky character comedy of When Harry Met Sally (or maybe that should be When Sally Met Sally). Shot in nicely toned black and white, the movie centres on the courtship of the dreamy, grungy and fussy Max (Guinevere Turner, who co-wrote the screenplay) and the plain, reserved Ely (V.S.Brodie), as manipulated and observed by a nicely drawn group of lesbian friends.

Refreshingly authentic in its measured journey to an inevitable conclusion, Go Fish gains wider resonance by its lively, unapolagetic depiction of lesbian social life. An early discussion of lesbians in movies lays out the cliches that the film assiduously avoids, and there are intriguing diversions to discuss lesbian politics, such as when the highly sexed Daria (a sassy, scene-stealing performance from Anastasia Sharp) returns from an assignation with a man, she is forced to defend her sexual orientation (in her mind’s eye at least) to a jury of her peers. But if that sounds a little politically didactic, the movie’s wry humour and inventive structure ensure it never gets bogged down in issues; instead it makes its point and skips ahead, switching from a lively discussion of euphemisms for the vagina (with honey pot coming out tops) to scenes of foreplay involving a pair of nail clippers.

Face it, I’m probably not the ideal person to review this, because like most heterosexual men, there’s nothing I like better than a lesbian art movie. If I have to sit in a dark theatre and watch two people get it on, they might as well both be women. But Go Fish is amongst the most inventive and entertaining movie debuts of recent years, with the wit, energy and style to spare. Go see.