It's a tale as old as time: You're a teenage girl, and one day, your relationship with your female best friend turns even more emotionally intense, codependent, and confusing than it already was. That's the terrain that first-time feature director Molly Manners explores in the delightful and moving coming-of-age film Extra Geography.
Debut actors Marni Duggan and Galaxie Clear star as BFFs Flic and Minna, two talented students at an all-girls boarding school. When the school puts on a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the two friends decide they don't understand romance, and make it their summer project to fall in love.
Of course, being that they attend an all-girls school, when they decide to "fall in love" with the next person they see, they both open their eyes to spy their frumpy and quiet geography teacher, Miss Delavigne (Alice Englert). Soon, the girls are staring wistfully at her, deciding to dream about her, and trying to figure out what love is.
Until she moves Cupid's arrow by aiming it at Miss Delavigne, Flic — through the way she looks at and talks to Minna — telegraphs that she is in love with her best friend. When Minna first brings up the idea of the two of them falling in love for their summer project, Flic blushes and has to break eye contact, thinking she means with each other. Later, when they close their eyes, then open them again to see who their first love will be, Flic secretly glances at Minna before the two of them look Miss Delavigne's way.
However, growing up is full of changes, and while the girls start their summer as inseparable, soon, boys, school, and popularity get in the way.
Flic is the more outsider of the two. She can be grumpy and curt, and doesn't have the blond hair and charisma that makes everyone flock to Minna. Flic works harder, but still, Minna gets a better part in the play (she's cast as Titania, queen of the faeries, while Flic is cast as a "mound/tree" and later as Bottom, the ass). Minna also gets all the attention from boys, and starts to grow distant from her one-time best friend.
Sometimes, that's what being a teen girl is like. No matter how hard some people try, they'll never be the girl who gets the part, the girl who gets kissed, the girl who gets picked.
Even when Minna abandons their project to fall in love with Miss Delavigne, choosing to go with boys instead of the "plain" and "ugly" teacher, Flic doubles down. She connects with Miss Delavigne over geography, learning about her home country of New Zealand and offering her emotional support.
Eventually, she succeeds in getting herself invited over to Miss Delavigne's cottage to look at family photos. At the last minute, Minna invites herself, and once there, she again steals the spotlight from Flic with ease.
It was Flic who worked hard all year, it was Flic who put in the effort, it was Flic who wants to fall in love, but things don't come easy for her like they do for some other girls. Duggan is brilliant in the role, filling the character with frustrated emotions and an overwhelming desire to be seen. She can't get a part in the play, she can't get a boy, she can't get a woman. But her time will come.
I never tire of queer girl coming-of-age stories, but even hardcore fans of the genre will find new things to delight in Extra Geography. It's the kind of movie that gives viewers second-hand mortification, nimbly transporting them back to their awkward teen years when every emotion and relationship spelled the end of the world.
Out review: 4 out of 5 stars.
