Being a gay teenager wasn’t particularly easy in 2000—ask me how I know! When Lifetime decided to examine the subject (two years after Jean Smart’s husband tumbled out of the closet in Change of Heart), it was appointment viewing for me. At the time, it felt underwhelming. It was a “message” movie and the conflicts were so easily, if imperfectly, resolved. At my house, it took much longer than 87 minutes for the arctic chill between a lesbian high school student and her conservative parents to thaw.
Revisiting The Truth About Jane as an adult perilously close to middle age, how differently would I feel? It turned out I liked it quite a bit more. Distance had dulled all the edges that were too sharp back then. I appreciated the clarity, and simplicity, with which writer-director Lee Rose captured what it was like to come out as a kid in the late ’90s/early aughts. And the homophobia of Stockard Channing’s character was much funnier to me than it had been back then, for reasons we’ll get to later.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.