The Joy of Life shares the pensive and lusty recollections of a butch lesbian living and aching for love in San Francisco. But then it shifts into an elegiac review of the Golden Gate Bridge as a terminal point for over 1,600 people since its construction. Life is close to death, joy not far from pain, the end of a film akin to the end of a life, muse Olson (and Dodge) as they contemplate Frank Capra's Meet John Doe, sex, friendship, and desire.
Jeremy Polacek
April 24, 2015