capsule : lesbianism examined in the same hushed and reverential tones reserved for a terminal illness . potentially interesting idea <NEG> made stagy and boring </NEG> . claire of the moon is <NEG> such an impossibly serious and sober </NEG> movie that i was waiting for someone to sneeze , just to break the ice . it's a perfect example of what my wife calls an s . f . e . movie , where s . f . e . means so f * * * ing earnest . movies like this need wit and brashness to be absorbing . claire is <NEG> one strained speech after another , written delivered with all of the energy and spontenaity of a dmv clerk </NEG> . claire takes two women , claire and noel , both writers , and throws them together in the same cabin at a women-only writer's retreat . claire wrights light comedy , while noel is a scholarly authority on porn and sexual behavior . obviously , the two of them are going to have plenty to talk about , and <NEG> for the entire one hundred and twelve insufferable minutes </NEG> of this movie , that's all they do : talk . the movie sets up its ( microscopic ) plot with <NEG> beat-a-dead-horse-into-glue obviousness </NEG> . the evening talks at the camp are chaired by a motherly type named maggie , a self-professed lesbian , and when noel owns up to also being a lesbian , claire looks like she's been hit with a sockful of wet sand . the movie then <NEG> quickly degenerates </NEG> into lots of scenes where noel glances at claire with significance , and claire looks out over the water reflectively . <NEG> ( ugh ! ) </NEG> the most amazing thing about the movie is how people so intelligent can talk so much and yet get so little through their thick heads . all of this , of course , leads up to <NEG> a scene of complete inevitability </NEG> : claire and noel , in a scene that should have come an hour earlier , because then the movie ends without even the benefit of reflection about what's just happened . we never get a hint about how any of this has changed anyone , only how they felt about things that didn't even happen yet . the problem with claire . . . is not lesbianism as such , but <NEG> the leaden way it's handled </NEG> . why is it that any " serious " ( a better word would be adult or at least thoughtful ) examination of sex in a movie almost always winds up producing a movie that's <NEG> unwatchably boring </NEG> ? the way this movie deals with lesbianism , <NEG> we might as well be watching an overheated docudrama about aids </NEG> . many other movies have used the same subject in ways that are a thousand times better -- more engaging , more creative , more intellectually and artistically interesting . look at john sayles' lianna , or the interesting and little-seen desert bloom ; both of them have more life and vibrancy than claire . <NEG> what this movie needed was a good swift kick in the pants </NEG> .
