Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne have directed their first film together, titled Am I OK? It follows a 30-something Lucy struggle to navigate her relationships after realising that she is gay.
Who are Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne?
Tig Notaro is a deadpan stand-up comedian and actor who found fame after one of her shows at Largo went viral. Notaro has been nominated for Best Comedy Awards at the Grammys and was nominated for an Emmy. Her two-part series One Mississippi was recently added to the Disney+.
Stephanie Allynne is an actor, writer and comedian. Her first role was in In a World… where she met Notaro. Four years after their marriage, Allynne was cast in the revival of The L Word.
Allynne says, ‘I’ve only been with Tig and then I got cast on the reboot of The L Word: Generation Q, and I all of a sudden was thrown into this community that I was not really experiencing young. You feel like, ‘Oh my God, all the time I spent not doing that, or not being gay, what was I doing?”
Am I OK?
All of Lucy’s endevours with men have come to nothing and she hasn’t been able to pin down why, until now. She has come to the realisation that she is a lesbian.
Now, with the help of her eager, proactive, type A best friend, Jane, Lucy attempts to figure out dating a whole new group of people while in her thirties.
Many films that centre around queer relationships come from the viewpoint of young adults. We have seen so many coming-of-age films about young queer love: Love Simon, Heartstopper, The half of it, Booksmart, etc.
But Am I OK? stands to represent those people who come to their queerness later in life.
This is a narrative that is rarely shown on screen, which is probably why audiences have taken so well to the film.
Am I OK? was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2022. It has not yet been released to the public, but is said to have been bought by HBO Max and will premiere on a date yet-to-be-determined.
The film currently has a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with one critic writing, ‘Am I OK? has plenty of endearing qualities. It’s wonderful seeing an adult’s coming-of-age story that doesn’t judge its lead for late discoveries but celebrates them.’
Cast
Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson plays the lead, Lucy. Alongiside her is Sonoya Minzuno who starred in Annihilation and Ex Machina. According to The Hollywood Reporter the pair have ‘easygoing chemistry’ throughout the film.
Other notable cast members are Sean Hayes (Will&Grace), Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America), Kiersey Clemons (Dope), Molly Gordon (Booksmart) and Odessa A’Zion (Fam).