"Lola Versus" didn't have a particularly strong opening weekend, grossing just $34,100 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. That put the New York-set film behind the charming "Safety Not Guaranteed" and "Peace Love and Misunderstanding" on the list of new indie releases -- something that might have to do with critical sexism. At least that's what the filmmakers behind "Lola Versus" seem to think.
On Saturday afternoon, film critic Eric D. Snider received a mass email from "The 'Breaking Upwards' Team," which blamed "older male critics" for writing negatively about the film and hurting the overall bottom line.
Our new movie with Fox Searchlight, 'Lola Versus,' just opened in theaters in NY and LA. The male critics are attacking the film and our box office really struggled last night. We think this has a lot to do with it being a female driven comedy about a single woman, and the older male critics don't like messy unapologetic stories with women at the center. There was a similar backlash against HBO's 'Girls' at first from men, but we don't have the luxury of a full TV season to change their minds.
As Indiewire's Matt Singer notes, 14 of the 17 "rotten" "Lola Versus" reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes were written by men, but the positive reviews were split fairly evenly among both genders. (For a more detailed breakdown of the critical disparity, head over to Indiewire.)
Whether that note came from Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, the real-life couple behind both "Breaking Upward" and "Lola Versus," or someone else is unclear. Fox Searchlight, the studio behind "Lola Versus," has yet to respond to HuffPost Entertainment's request for comment.
In an interview with HuffPost before the release of "Lola Versus," star Greta Gerwig lamented the fact that Hollywood doesn't make films with flawed leading ladies. That was echoed by Wein.
"We based it on some of the experiences that Zoe had as a single woman and all of these single woman that are in our lives as friends," he said in an interview with HuffPost. "Just hearing the stories of single women in the city -- the real stories. Not the 'Sex and the City' stories. Which is great, I love 'Sex and the City' too, but we were craving with something that felt more grounded."
"Lola Versus" is out in theaters now.
[via Indiewire]
