With a fist full of credit cards, a lucky run at the horse track, and chutzpah for days, Franco Stevens launched Curve, the best-selling lesbian magazine ever published. AHEAD OF THE CURVE tracks the power of lesbian visibility and community from the early '90s to the present day through the story of Franco's founding of Curve magazine. Decades later, in the wake of a disabling injury, Franco learns that Curve will fold within the year and questions the relevance of the magaz... (Full plot summary below)
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With a fist full of credit cards, a lucky run at the horse track, and chutzpah for days, Franco Stevens launched Curve, the best-selling lesbian magazine ever published. AHEAD OF THE CURVE tracks the power of lesbian visibility and community from the early '90s to the present day through the story of Franco's founding of Curve magazine. Decades later, in the wake of a disabling injury, Franco learns that Curve will fold within the year and questions the relevance of the magazine in the face of accelerating threats to LGBTQ+ community. To forge a path forward, Franco reaches out to women working in today's queer spaces to understand what queer women need today and how Curve can continue to serve the community.
Leave your thoughts about Ahead of the Curve.
| Los Angeles TimesTracy BrownWhile Ahead of the Curve doesn’t offer any solid answers, it does make the case that understanding lesbian history should be a key part in assessing the future. |
| The Hollywood ReporterInkoo KangFirst-time director Jen Rainin’s portrait of Stevens, Curve‘s achievements and blindspots, lesbian progress during the Clinton era and the uneasiness with the “lesbian” label among many queer women today is accomplished, resonant and deeply moving. |
| The Film StageJose SolísBy attempting to capture the universal instead of focusing on the specific, the film feels like a collection of ideas put forth in an amorphous collage. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreAhead of the Curve does a decent job of summarizing a forty year blur in gay history and Stevens’ role in it as a spokeswoman for her sexuality and community on TV in the ’90s — “Power Dykes,” on the next “Geraldo!” — a pioneering publisher and a leader in the culture’s breathtaking shift in attitudes on sexuality, marriage and gender identity. |
| The New York TimesTeo BugbeeThe film’s subjects are overwhelmingly earnest, but the movie suffers for its substitution of enterprise over entertainment. |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawIt’s a valuable portrait of a great risk-taker. |
