Loving Annabelle

Loving Annabelle (2006)
Directed by: Katherine Brooks
Starring: Erin Kelly as Annabelle and Diane Gaidry as Simone Bradley

The film is about a 17 year old "juvenile delinquent" senator's daughter named Annabelle who had to transfer to a Catholic School to "rehabilitate" her. Annabelle fell in love with her 30 year old literature teacher named Simone Bradley. It was actually Annabelle who pursues Simone, who apparently was a closet lesbian in school but the teachers and even administrators knew her history as a lesbian. Annabelle found out that Simone was a lesbian when she went to her house and discovered a note written by her former lover. Hesitation actually came to Simone's mind first because she's not yet over with her former lover and of course it is against school rules to have an affair with a student. They had a rendezvous after the high school dance and eventually got caught the morning after by the administrators of the school. After that Simone was arrested and that ended the story.

The irony of the whole situation is actually the setting itself: everything happened inside the Catholic School. The writer probably would want to show a mini-'controlled environment' like this one, to show the control of religion over people. However, the usage of this setting, an all-girls Catholic School, only proliferates the idea that lesbianism only happens in all-girl schools (which is so untrue). I am not denying the fact that from the school I came from, an exclusive school for girls, these things happen. In fact whenever I say the school I came from, there is already a judgment of "oh, that's why you're a lesbian".

The story is very simple and easy to grasp however it seemed that the writer wanted to sensationalize things like Annabelle being a senator's daughter, happy go lucky, deviant, etc and Simone being a former lesbian ( or a has-bian), a teacher, obedient etc.. The 2 main characters' extreme opposite characteristics and the setting itself make the story sensationalized. I say sensationalized because it seems that it just wanted to attract attention. In addition, there was no resolution. Simone was just arrested then THE END. Lastly, it did not give the audience the opportunity to assess what needs to be done in the status quo, but if you want something to watch that would not make you think too much then this film is for you.