Luke Landis | Pink Lemonade / 2016

leading nowhere

by Douglas Messerli

 

Luke Landis (screenwriter and director) Pink Lemonade / 2016 [7 minutes]

 

Alex is one of those high school boys who a girl, in this case a first-class bitch (I don’t generally ever use that term, but this girl could be the star a Mean Girls, 2004) who is convinced she has already wound him around her finger and is now ready to go in for the kill, a deep session of kissing and dancing that will certainly lead to sex. But it’s apparent from the beginning that Alex is simply lost when it comes to sexuality, his girlfriend Clara (Audrey Shapiro), meanwhile, bad-mouthing the sexual behavior of her fellow classmates and displaying some of the most narrow-minded and homophobic attitudes possible. For her nearly everyone who does something of which the others girls to not approve is a “pervert.”

     From out of nowhere, Alex catches a glimpse of a cute boy selling pink lemonade, and immediately goes up to him, laying out a dollar for a glass. The boys hit it off almost instantly, but then Clara is there to remind him of where he is and to whom he really belongs.

     She takes him back home, and attempts to bring him closer to her, encouraging him to share a dance and attempting to engage him in kisses. But he keeps moving off, now gradually having visions of the cute lemonade seller, and each time she moves in to his imaginary lover to make it clear that she is still waiting for his attentions.

     When he pulls away again, running off to the bathroom, she finally begins to suspect the worse, and when he returns, and finally admits he just doesn’t want to have a relationship, she grows furious, calls him a perv, and walks off.

      Poor Alex is revisited by his imaginary pink lemonade-selling friend Jacob (Jordan Officer), but of course, in actuality, he is now left alone, without anyone, having to come to terms with the fact that he may, indeed, be gay.

      Unfortunately, this film takes it no further, and we are left alone to realize that Alex may be having a sexual crisis, but he is far too ignorant, passive, and seeming disinterested in taking his fantasies any further. Why doesn’t he head out the door himself in search of Jacob? But Landis’ movie seems itself too disinterested to take its conceit any further, leaving the work in the lurch and the viewer completely dissatisfied.

       This film ultimately leads nowhere.

 

Los Angeles, September 18, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2026).