Tell It to the Bees

Tell It To The Bees can seem a little too respectable for its own good but there are moments of pain and heartbreak that rise to the surface, especially in a tense climax that puts the fates of several characters in the balance.

What Tell It To The Bees accomplishes for queer romance it abandons with an ending that is committed to unnecessary melancholy.

Grainger (soon to be seen in Sophie Hyde’s brilliant, jagged Animals) is a magnetic and sensual foil to the frowning, reliably expressive Paquin. The flirty tension between the two feels quietly credible, the camera occasionally shuddering with desire. A pity, then, that this sweetness is lost as the film makes a tonal swerve in its final third.

Paquin, in one of her strongest performances since The Piano, and especially Grainger (best known for a substantial résumé of British television) shoulder the film’s dramatic burdens with grace and ease. They’re a pleasure to watch. But the unassumingly square and overly familiar film simply isn’t the buzzworthy vehicle their work deserves.

Then there’s a third act that’s so wildly out of left field, it shifts the tone completely. It’s an almost comical departure, but it’s certainly a disappointing one.

A gentle and prettily appointed romantic tragedy with likeable performances; but there’s a stultifying blandness to proceedings and an implausible final act.

Within the film’s modest scale, the period trappings feel apt, and its aesthetic packaging is attractive enough. But particularly for a movie largely about repression, “Bees” is so full of forced emotions that it teeters on the brink of cliche-riddled camp.

Routine drama. I liked the story but the execution is so predictable that I got bored pretty fast.

This one offers all you might expect, some occasionally nice cinematography and settings, with a good cast trying hard with an under-performing script. Problem here is, within minutes into the story you know exactly where the writers and movie makers are manipulating you to go - it’s yet another of those ‘the women are out’ works. Here we have all the expected elements, 1950s small town closed mindedness, likable women, and un-likable men. None of the elements rise above their sole predictable intention - in fact, there are also silly fantasy plot devises:- like bees bonding to humans and gathering in virtual support! - the unemployed and penniless woman somehow being able to pack up her young son and start a new life ‘somewhere else’, the shunned lesbian doctor wining over the town with her shining abilities. Much money has been given to this one-note production when what we actually need are movies that universally unite all of us - not just the gender confused select. Disappointing.