Flashback Friday — Pride Series: Better Than Chocolate

Check out this pioneering and sexy lesbian film!

Hey Fleshbot fans! For Pride Month, I’m putting aside the porn for a month for Throwback Thursday and recapping some of the sexiest LGBTQIA+ movies and TV shows in recent history and I’m starting off with Better Than Chocolate, released in 1999 and directed by Anne Wheeler. The film is filmed and set in Canada and it’s basically a supergay lesbian romcom.

Out of the gate, I want to put out a content warning that this film does contain some anti-trans violence and also depicts intolerant family members of various kinds, so if that yucks your yum, please take care of yourself and a choose another movie.

We lay our scene at a club where cute ginger femme Maggie (Karen Dwyer) is having a night out dancing at a gay club and she’s harassed on her way home by some punks. Luckily, a soft butch nomadic artist called Kim (Christina Cox) pulls up in her van and scares them off. This character was doing #vanlife before it was a thing. We learn that Maggie has been living in the back room at her job, a LGBTQIA bookstore (remember those?) owned by timid and bespectacled lesbian Frances (Ann-Marie McDonald), where Maggie works with transwoman Judy (Peter Outerbridge) and slutty bi girl Carla (Marya Delver).

Things are looking up for Maggie as she agrees to sublet a place from a sex educator friend who’s going on the road for a bit, and she encounters Kim again when out and about the day after Kim nearly had to run over the thugs. Unfortunately, Kim’s van gets towed while they are having some sapphic sexytime in the back and Kim agrees to stay with Maggie till she can get the van out of impound. Kim shows Maggie a really fun way to paint a picture involving naked bodies and canvas, and they are having a wonderful time falling in love. Only one problem--- Maggie’s conservative mom and sexually frustrated brother are inbound for a visit and they don’t know that she’s gay or that she’s left university. Eek! Quite a way to start a relationship-- but the central characters of Maggie and Kim persevere through all the trials thrown at them and it's one of those romcoms where the central couple and all of the peripheral characters get their happily ever after.

I won’t spoil the rest of the plot, but yes, there’s lots of hot sex scenes for y’all who are in a relationship with your pause button-- no judgment! There’s an art technique I really want to try depicted early in the film-- you'll know which one! There’s a censorship and free expression subplot which is always enjoyable. The soundtrack is great as well, including Judy’s fantastic musical number “I Am Not A Fucking Drag Queen”, and is it even a sapphic queer movie without an Ani DiFranco song? The title of the movie is derived from a song by Sarah McLachlan, another talented Canadian. I would hope that if it were made today, this film would cast an actual transwoman as Judy, and include some more racial, ethnic, and body diversity, but it really does stand the test of time in my opinion. I first watched it for a queer cinema class in college (cough) years ago, and I still enjoy it.

Better Than Chocolate is currently available to stream (at press time) for free on Tubi, Freevee, Pluto, and the Roku Channel.