Guinevere (1999 film)


Guinevere is a 1999 American drama film about the artistic and romantic relationship between a young student and her older mentor.
The film was written and directed by Audrey Wells and stars Stephen Rea, Sarah Polley, Jean Smart, and Gina Gershon. The film was a 1999 Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize nominee. It won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Welles' screenplay, which she shared with Frank Whaley's script for Joe the King. It was also entered into the 21st Moscow International Film Festival.

Plot

Harper Sloane is a misfit in her snobbish, and upperclass family of lawyers, who has just gotten accepted to law school at Harvard. At her sister's wedding, after being sent out from her hiding place in the storage room with a bottle of champagne, she meets Connie Fitzpatrick a bohemian photographer who takes an instant liking to her and nicknames her "Guinevere". Her visit to his loft in order to pick up the wedding photographs soon blossoms into a full-blown affair, and Harper eventually moves in with Connie as he instructs her in the ways of art, in particular photography.
After a brutal confrontation with Harper's mother, Deborah, and Harper's discovery that Connie has a history of relationships with young women, the film comes to a climax in a downtrodden L.A. hotel where Connie ends the relationship by kicking Harper out. She returns only once, five years later, as he is dying from cirrhosis of the liver, and meets the other Guineveres he has had. On the rooftop, she describes her personal view of his kind of heaven, which she affectionately titles "The Connie Special".

Cast