Documentaries have, among laypeople, something of an unfortunate reputation. Compared to fiction films, they’re perceived as being dry, educational, inaccessible. It’s a reputation accrued over years of unimaginative filmmaking from creatives who saw the documentary medium as a creative dead end; decades of commercialization and artistic innovation still haven’t done much to change the medium’s public perception, even if those creatives have become somewhat convinced otherwise.
“Somewhat” convinced – somewhere along the way, a template was formed for documentary filmmaking, a template that now pervades the nonfiction film world. Its artistic innovations are modest but its style and tone are decidedly contemporary, projecting an accessible demeanor with every brightly lit talking-head studio, every snappily edited montage, every uplifting sequence of political optimism against the odds. It’s a template that works, ostensibly, assuaging the fears of casual viewers that the documentary they’re about to subject themselves to won’t be too much of a chore. But it’s a template that, by now, is desperately tired.
A movie like Ahead of the Curve really ought not to adhere itself to such a template. After all, it’s all about the importance of media detaching itself from convention and fulfilling a need for new, progressive representation in the public sphere. Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow’s movie tells the story of the remarkable rise and the slow, steady decline of Curve, or Deneuve as it was once monikered, an American magazine by lesbians, about lesbians and unapologetically for lesbians. Since its establishment in 1990, it has been alternately at the forefront and in the background of femme-focused civil rights in the U.S., paving the way for lesbians and queer women in American media, politics and public life, then falling victim to increasing irrelevance in a brave new 21st century media landscape where the need it once fulfilled may no longer exist.
Rainin and Medow follow that template of modern, accessible documentary filmmaking to the letter and it’s a pursuit that serves them pretty well – the template works! Ahead of the Curve is arguably a biodoc about its subject’s founder, Franco Stevens – Rainin’s wife – as it is about its subject, and Stevens features throughout, narrating the story of her personal life both prior to and during her involvement with Curve alongside that of the magazine’s life. She’s an amenable, charismatic central figure for the movie, intelligent in her outlook, brave in her actions and endlessly compelling to watch. Even after an injury saw her step back from her duties at the magazine in 1997, she remained an important person in its identity both internally and publicly, so her prominence in this movie is as reasonable as it is agreeable.
Once Ahead of the Curve has employed its plain, simple, fruitful approach to relating its story several times over, however, through different chapters in the admittedly interesting narrative of Curve’s existence, the rewards of such an approach begin to dwindle. We learn first of Curve’s humble beginnings as Deneuve, its subsequent rapid ascent to success, its slowly developing commercial clout, its name change as the result of a lawsuit brought by its namesake, a rather talentless French actress whose full name shall go unprinted here, then eventually its difficulties following Stevens’ injury and changes elsewhere in the modern media and publishing milieu. It’s all very straightforward, all very predictable, all occurring in precisely that fashion dictated by the template it so dutifully follows, right up to the upbeat, sunny, flag-waving final scene as the viewer exits with a hopeful smile across their face. These may be dark times for Curve, but the future’s bright! Right?
Well, perhaps not. What Rainin and Medow neglect to provide is much context around the specific difficulties the magazine has faced and this makes their movie’s eventual optimism for its endurance a little suspect. It’s a banal, platitudinous panacea, concealing the fact that the world today might not hold a place for a product like Curve, a fact only briefly alluded to herein. As much as the directors have detailed its rise, offered as they were the direct insight into that rise from someone who was actually there, they rather skirt past its fall. The few contributions from people in a position to speak on the nature of this less favorable chapter in Curve’s lifespan are terse and a little evasive, withholding the important details that the movie may skim over them more smoothly and get back to putting smiles on viewers’ faces.
It is thus that Ahead of the Curve comes up short. It’s not that the template it follows isn’t a viable one – this movie and so many more collectively prove its viability. It’s that this template really isn’t the right one for the story Rainin and Medow should be telling. Far be it for anyone to tell a filmmaker what story they should be telling, but it’s abundantly clear from this movie that there’s a whole lot more to this story. Its omissions make for a simpler movie, a less challenging, less controversial movie. It’s all very pleasant and entirely diverting for its swift 98 minutes. But it’s neither the whole story nor the right story. After all, Franco Stevens took the mother of all risks in founding her magazine 31 years ago. It’s a shame that the story of that risk should be told in the most risk-averse movie imaginable.
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