Review

Léa Pool’s (Set Me Free) new film Lost and Delirious vividly captures the insular world of the private girls school and the pangs of intense first love. Young Mouse Bradford (Mischa Barton) is sent to an all-girls' boarding school by her distant, unconcerned parents. At first lost, she soon finds friends in her two senior roommates: zingy and ferocious Paulie (Piper Perabo) and charming Tory (Jessica Paré). The three become close friends, during which time Mouse realizes Tory and Paulie are sharing a secret, passionate affair. Mouse accepts this, but the rest of school isn’t so open-minded, and when Tory’s younger sister catches the two, things begin to spiral downward. Tory, determined to fit into her family’s ideals, starts dating boys while Paulie goes ballistic, fueled to reclaim her lover no matter what it takes. Adapted from Susan Swan’s turbulent novel "The Wives of Bath" by screenwriter Judith Thompson, Pool’s first English-language film is a steamy, accomplished and ambitious follow-up to her understated, autobiographical Set Me Free. Thompson’s script removes some of the novel’s more violent and fantastical elements but retains its taut emotional core, Romeo and Juliet-like passion, and a whole lot of tension. There’s certainly a heaping helping of feverish, gorgeously shot sex between the attractive young leads – so much so that a Sundance programmer referred to Lost and Delirious as “eye candy for girls.” And Pool proves herself to be a director Hollywood should part waves for.