Despite noble intentions, Maria Maggenti's The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love isn't quite as incredible as it wants to be. It's a lesbian romantic comedy that's not sure whether it wants to be a serious investigation of the reality of teenaged lesbian relationships or a silly, slapstick comedy. In the end, it tries for both and ends up being mostly forgettable. It's as if the director posed some serious questions, but then rather than offer up answers, devolved into the chaos of unsubtlety, hoping to entertain the lowest common denominator. The ending of this film is particularly unsatisfying, as it resorts to stereotypes and turns its characters into cardboard.

Randy (Laurel Hollomon) is a tomboy gas-station attendant, scorned by her peers as a lesbo freak. She's edgy and wants to start a band. As fate would have it, she meets the popular girl—preppie, pampered Evie (Nicole Ari Parker)—in an unlikely scenario at the gas station. Evie is confused about her sexuality, having just broken up with her bonehead boyfriend and wondering what's wrong with her. As the two girls become friends, their relationship quickly becomes serious, and Evie goes through the expected angst of losing her old friends and essentially abandoning her old life. The story is told with a great degree of earnestness, and you can sense the agenda of the filmmakers.

But it all falls apart a few hours after the girls enjoy their first sexual experience in Evie's empty mansion. You see, Mom comes home, discovers the two girls in her bed, and suddenly changes from the caring, intelligent woman of the first half of the film into a screaming, one-dimensional shrew. All the other characters, previously drawn fairly well, follow suit. Randy's lesbian family joins in the fray, becoming shrill and meaningless.

I wanted to forgive a lot of these flaws and find something meaningful in these proceedings, and I found that meaning in Parker's performance. She is absolutely luminescent and saves the film from disaster. Her presence is exactly what the film is missing—gentle, curious, deep. I want to see more of her. As for the rest of the film, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love is obviously a labor of love, shot with extremely limited funds, but the screenplay is its fatal flaw, not its lesbian energies.

New Line presents The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love in a good anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 1.85:1 theatrical presentation. The presentation does contain a fair share of grain, mostly because the film was shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm. But it's not bothersome at all. It adds to the film's charm. But by necessity, it lends a flatness to the image. Detail is just fine, better than many much-higher-budgeted films, and colors appear accurate if slightly oversaturated. The downside is the presence of a fair amount of digital artifacting, which you'll notice as jittery blocking amongst the grain. The image itself also seems rather unstable.

The disc offers a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, as well as the original 2.0 track. The presentation is mostly dialog-driven, and there's little difference between the two, as far as surround activity is concerned. The surprise is that the 2.0 track feels more natural and effective for the film. Voices are smoother and more natural in the 2.0 track. In the 5.1 track, the presentation seems a little brittle at the high end. The score in the 5.1 track feels more expansive.

The only extra of note is a Director Commentary by Maria Maggenti, and it's a pretty good one. She talks nonstop throughout the film, sometimes lapsing into the habit of narrating onscreen action but mostly providing juicy behind-the-scene tidbits. She has a lot to say about the ultra-low-budget origins of the film, and she's not afraid to tell us what she doesn't like about the finished product. She goes into all areas of the production, from the writing to the casting to the editing, and it's all fun. I particularly liked how she pointed out gaffes and cheap tricks used to overcome the lack of a budget.

You also get the film's Original Theatrical Trailer.

New Line's DVD presentation of The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love is not bad. It's not great, either. The film is just this side of forgettable, despite the earnestness of its makers. Watch it for the superb performance of Nicole Ari Parker. Maggenti offers an informative commentary, which is the DVD's sole interesting supplement. Video and sound are good, not great.