Jordan-Paige Sudduth | Aces / 2022

the definition of a word

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jordan-Paige Sudduth (screenwriter and director) Aces / 2022 [9.30 minutes]

 

A far less sophisticated study in Ace sexuality than Gear’s film Ace of 2018, Jordan-Paige Sudduth’s Aces features a girl, Phoebe (AJ Antrim) who meets up with a girl who attends her school, Summer (Emi Curia) when she misses the bus. Summer gives her a ride to school in her car and the two, over a period of dozens of teen-cute images), develop a close friendship.

     In one of the few dialogue encounters, Phoebe, recognizing that Summer seems to have been flirting with her, asks her about it and when she admits she has, confides that she is also lesbian. And their relationships warms up accordingly, with a lot of winks, hugs, and snuggles. But when Summer finally removes her shirt to get serious, Phoebe reacts vehemently, without even thinking, hurling the accusation at Summer that instead of a true relationship she just wants to get her into bed.

     In response, Summer accuses her of being Ace, a word that Phoebe has never even heard before, and which would remind any gay boy or lesbian girl of the epithets hurled at many of us in our childhoods such a “homo,” “queer,” or “lez,” without us quite knowing what the words truly meant for our lives. Here, the girl’s close friendship seems suddenly to be over, and Phoebe feels left out of all human contact, finally calling up the word on “Goggle” to discover it defines actually who she feels herself to be.

     The two meet again soon after, Summer immediately apologizing for her behavior, with Phoebe stopping her to suggest that “Maybe I am what you said, Ace.”

      Summer insists that they can still remain friends, despite Phoebe’s doubts about being unable to give her want she wants. And the two make up, presumably taking hundreds of teen-cute images of their fun times together over the next few years.

      If nothing else, this film actually offers us an opportunity to see a young girl come to terms with an identity suddenly thrust upon her, and the bigot, in this case with a great deal more knowledge that her friend, recognizing the meanness of her bigotry—although one has to imagine that at a certain point Summer will have to engage with other girls to more fully explore her sexual desires, leaving Phoebe perhaps, once more on the outside of a world that seemingly functions, at times, not according to the meaning of a word but to the body’s hormonal demands.

 

Los Angeles, April 2, 2023

Reprinted in My Queer Cinema blog (April 2023).