Isabel Steuble-Johnson | Cursive / 2023

linking things up

by Douglas Messerli

 

Joe Borg (screenplay), Isabel Steuble-Johnson (director) Cursive / 2023 [10 minutes]

 

A young lesbian woman, Dot (Adaya Monique Henry), in a relationship with Bea (Holly Hawgood), begins to sense their relationship is falling apart. Dot feels that it is a result, in part, of her not feeling comfortable of joining in the games played by their mutual friends, which all involve writing. Dot can only print and has never learned the simple art of cursive, although these days with touchphones and computers one wonders why these women simply don’t communicate in that manner, inside of writing their game cards, thank you cards, and invitations by hand.

 

  In any event, Dot fears that her intelligent and socially skillful friend is about to leave her, in part, because of her lack of such simple abilities. And it has made her, as her lover argues, serious and introspective, no longer someone who wants to participate in social occasions, particularly their game playing.

     Having stolen a hand-made card at a party, Dot at first attempts to imitate the beautiful hand-written script of the card, which simply becomes a jumble of marks. Finally, she emails the maker of the card, Angela (Marie Johnson), seeking help in learning cursive. As she writes (in an e-mail message), “I’m reaching out because I hate my handwriting and wonder if you could help. No matter how hard I try, it’s just not good enough. I feel like it’s just not in line with who I am anymore and might be holding me back.”

      Angela agrees to help her over several weeks, Dot at first trying to copy others’ handwriting, until Angela explains that she must find her own signature style, since handwriting, she explains, “Is a reflection of your innermost thoughts and feelings.”

      Over the next several weeks Dot practices for several hours each day in her little white notebook, hiding her new efforts from her lover. Eventually, she sees results, beginning to leave little notes wherever she goes, even handing one to Bea: “Maybe enough is enough. But I wish you nothing but love. (a heart) Dot xx.” And given the smile on Dot’s face, we presume that her effort was “enough” to alter the situation and their relationship is back on track.

 

     What British writer Joe Borg and director Steuble-Johnson are attempting to say about lesbian love in the British Empire is beyond me. I might imagine that Dot’s real problem is that she has hooked up with a woman in Bea and her social set that spend their days writing frivolous notes back and forth to one another in a manner that reminds me of another century. My friends, for example, all now use e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, and other media services to communicate with me, and I often read now in the newspapers that cursive is no longer even being taught in several schools.

      I gather that this director wanted to show how disturbing that fact was, and how such a trend might restrict how she and her friends interact. This little film certainly seems a bit reactionary, a little like the current British monarch railing against contemporary architecture—both the film and his royal displeasure having very little effect.

       I suppose, however, that such a dismissive attitude as mine only goes to prove how course and crude Americans truly are, not even able to send off birthday tidings and thank you notes for all the pleasant afternoons of wine and games of word association by their first letter. At least Dot can now join in without feeling uncomfortable for her scrawny disconnected characters, clearly a metaphor of her former inner self. She has now “gotten herself together” and “linked things up.”

 

Los Angeles, April 13, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).