To Cross the Rubicon Movie Review

My favorite of all the films I had a chance to see at 1991's On Screen: A Celebration of Women in Film Festival was To Cross the Rubicon. Shot on a very low budget, it is not a perfect film and there are no name stars in it, but it does such a superb job revealing the best friendship of two very different women that I wish it had been chosen for the opening night film (instead of Mary Lambert's Grand Isle)! Lorraine Devon and Patricia Royce co-wrote their starring roles for the film and Royce co-produced Rubicon with director Barry Caillier. The dialogue between the two women is very real, fresh, and funny. Rubicon shows how women have the power to make each other feel better and worse than anyone else, and often both in the blink of an eye. Devon and Royce are an extremely appealing team and J.D. Souther and Billy Burke are excellent as two of the men in their lives. The Seattle-based To Cross the Rubicon also benefits from judicious editing. When the film was first screened six months before the festival, it was an unwieldy two and a half hours in length; it was later trimmed to a far more manageable 120 minutes.

1991 120m/C Patricia Royce, J.D. Souther, Lorraine Devon, Billy Burke; D: Barry Caillier; W: Patricia Royce, Lorraine Devon. VHS