the hunt for a mysterious gay movie

(Want the Cliff Notes? Here's the Letterboxd list of the movies I'll be watching!)

Imagine, if you will... on a cold spring afternoon, just like this one... a young junior in college is sitting in his film class themed after road trip movies... and fresh off the high of discussing Thelma and Louise and Drive Away Dolls, someone suggests a rather intriguing film to add to the syllabus next semester.

The protagonist of our story, being a complete fucking idiot, forgets the title before he can even write it down. It goes forgotten for a few weeks. Then, one night, having put his webcomic on hiatus, he faces a deep craving for yuri. So begins the journey we now find ourselves on beginning August 29th, 2025. This introduction sucks and will probably be rewritten when I don't have work in the morning and I'm not about to fall asleep. Whatever! Welcome to my lesbian search!

our search criteria

So, here's everything I remember about the recommendation. This movie:

• is about a lesbian (or potentially bi woman) looking for a woman named Carol
• was discovered via a YouTube video about 90s lesbian crime films...
• and was therefore made in the 90s
• has a main character who may or may not have killed people
• is a road film; it was discussed in the context of a road film class
• is probably fairly obscure

I'm willing to accept that my memory is fuzzy, so let's say that any candidate only needs one of the above criteria and absolutely MUST be about a queer woman. Serious candidates will have a character named Carol. And for convenience's sake, I'm going to call our movie Looking for Carol. Cool? Cool.

so why haven't you found it yet?

Believe you me, I've tried. I tried to find the video essay our dear recommender watched, but YouTube search sucks ass now. I would contact her directly, but she stopped showing up to class like a week later and I don't know her name. I've trawled through IMDB and Letterboxd. No dice.

This search is impeded by the fact that one of the seminal works of modern American lesbian fiction, and modern American novels in general, is Carol (aka The Price of Salt). Funnily enough, it's also got a film adaptation. This means that as we search, not only do we have to contend with discussions of Carol, but sapphic films may also be disproportionately likely to have characters named Carol. Great.

That said, we do have a few candidates that are pretty definitely not Looking for Carol:

• Eileen (2023): Yes on lesbians, yes on murder, yes on clear inspiration from Carol. However, I watched it before I even started the class. It also made me allo for like a week over Anne Hathaway's character but that's besides the point. (If you are a yuri warrior that is pure of heart, please watch this movie. If you are not a brave and true toxic yuri warrior, you probably won't like it. Sorry.)
• Carol (2015): See above.
• Thelma and Louise (1991): Yes on murder, yes on 90s, yes on road trip, maybe on lesbians, but it's not our guy. Despite the presence of a character named Darryl (startling similarity to Carol), I watched this in our film class, and the recommendation was in the context of a film to add to the syllabus.
• Drive Away Dolls (2024): Yes on murder, yes on lesbians, yes on road trip, still not our guy. It was during discussion of this film in the road movie class that Looking For Carol was brought up.

In case you didn't click earlier, here's the Letterboxd list of current candidates. If you see one that's not on there or have found the video essay, comment on the list! If you don't have a Letterboxd, you can drop me a line via my Tumblr inbox without an account. People who can find this movie for me will go to heaven when they die no matter how evil they are.

At this point in time, Butterfly Kiss (1995) looks the most promising, so that's probably the one I'll be starting with. See you guys soon!