A married Highschool School Secretary falls for the Girl’s Basketball Coach/Geometry Teacher in this quirky and low-key Romantic Dramedy. Written by Gretchen Dyer, and Directed by her sister Julia Dyer this 1996 movie is a real hidden gem.
Read on to see why you should add Late Bloomers to your Lesbian Classics Shelf.
Act One: Meet Cute
Carly Lumpkin (Dee Henningan) is unsatisfied with her life. Her romance with her inattentive and unhelpful husband Ron Lumpkin (Gary Carter) has seemingly long since dried up, she wanders around her job feeling shy and alienated and her teenage daughter Val (Jonah Lisa Dyer) wants nothing to do with her!
Dinah Groshardt (Connie Nelson) is lonely. Despite hanging out with the other teachers and coaching a very successful Basketball Team she always returns to a empty home shared with her two adorable turtles. This slow routine she’s in is interrupted when she confiscates a sexual note from Val Lumpkin and subsequently goes to her house for a parent teacher conference.
It is at this house call that the two soon to be lovers meet for the first time over Carly accusing Dinah of writing that note to her husband. (Dinah hadn’t gotten around to saying why she was there yet and conveniently left the note sticking prominently out of her purse.) After this funny misunderstanding is settled the two Women go their separate ways again.
When next we see our Heroes they are both chaperoning the big school dance. As they stand around watching the students hop around to the shitty music of a local teen band they decide that there’s no reason they shouldn’t feel that young and energetic too so they dance together in the first of many adorable scenes between the two Women.
This Dance sparks off the attraction between them and in a montage of quick glances and serendipitous meetings they decide to date play Basketball 1-on-1 together for a while. It’s during these basketball games that their relationship blossoms into full romance where they declare their love for each other and agree to keep their relationship under the radar, once Carly leaves her husband of course.
Carly coming out to/Breaking up with Ron goes about as well as you’d expect a spouse being told “I’ve been cheating on you, and also I’m maybe Gay” to go and he stammers between denial and incredulity begging his wife to return to normalcy. The movie manages really well to not demonize either couple in this scene and they both come off sympathetic.
Act Two: The Town Finds Up
The New Couple now living happily together in Dinah’s house can’t keep their relationship a secret for very long and the Town quickly finds out. This leads to a conservative hate campaign that leads to a terrible PTA meeting where it’s decided to fire the two Women if they don’t cease their relationship. As Dinah and Carly plan to get married they refuse and lose their jobs. The only voices of support the couple has are in Carly’s Ex Husband Ron Lumpkin who defends Carly as a Mother and demands they leave their kids out of this and the only other Gay Couple in the area two Men who throw the bible right back at a homophobic bible thumper in a welcome scene of Solidarity.
The Post Firing Period is one of conflicting emotions. Even as Dinah and Carly (and Carly’s son Avery) plan their wedding they can’t help but sit outside of the school sadly looking at it. It’s during this period that Ron Lumpkin while talking to Carly at his House gives her divorce papers and in a scene that makes me cry so hard tells her that seeing her this happy, confident and excited makes him remember how much he loves her and that he hopes the two Women will be happy for a long time.
After officially divorcing his Ex the climax of the film starts as he delivers a quiet and impassioned speech about Love and Acceptance to his students that sets off a massive student protest in support of the soon to be married couple. The Film ends as Dinah and Carly get married surrounded by their friends and family the future bright and open for them.
Review
I love this movie, the tone never wavers from a low-key off kilterness that plays everything for light laughs that keeps the movie from becoming saccharine. The two Women are goofy and weird, they play basketball naked multiple times. The staff and students at the school all feel like Sitcom Side Characters and have their own running gags like The other coach who always drinks 3 milks with lunch or one teacher who dramatically gestures instead of talking.
The movie also doesn’t shy away from the very real homophobia in the town. In addition to the disastrous PTA meeting Dinah has to tell a Man who’s trying to “convert her” to fuck off and Carly’s daughter Val has a character arc unlearning her homophobia that she’s been hurling at her Mom during the movie.
Sadly the music in this movie sucks, it’s often out of place and occasionally mixed poorly leading to several emotional scenes landing with a blunted impact.
Winning some Lone Star Film & Television Awards and getting nominated for a Jury prize at Sundance Late Bloomers came and went in 1996 without much fanfare. Hopefully with it’s availability on Streaming (both Roku Channel and Tubi) this film can slowly find its audience and get the recognition as a defiant and hopeful Rom Com it deserves.
