By Design

One of the most underrated, unsung lesbian-themed movies of the 1980s, and one of a small handful not to treat its characters as caricatures and its subject in an exploitative or titillating way; that said, there is one phone/sex scene (probably not in the way you think) which is steamy, unusual, funny and touching all at once. The film is technically rough and sometimes even crude, but it has an understated, intimate, low-key charm; a Canadian production, it is completely unlike the conventional Hollywood comedies of its era (for example, many scenes play out without any kind of music score). Sara Botsford and Patty Duke are wonderful together; Saul Rubinek starts out as highly obnoxious but the script does a good job of humanizing him by the end. It's a positive lesbian movie - many years before those three words would be widely accepted together in mainstream cinema. *** out of 4.