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List Price: $24.95 | | Label: Wolfe Video
Salesrank: 3886
Released: December 12, 2006 |
| Our Price: $15.40 |
| Used Price: $17.01 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
One Student One Teacher One Secret Loving Annabelle is the controversial story of a Catholic Boarding School teacher Simone Bradley (Diane Gaidry) who has an affair with her female student Annabelle (Erin Kelly).Simone is Saint Theresa's prized young poetry teacher who finds peace and security within the boarding school's walls. Surrounded by a lush atmosphere with little conflict Simone has settled into a life of comfort and purpose educating her young female students.Annabelle is a charismatic and enchanting new student who quickly draws attention for her rebellious behavior. Fearing Annabelle will influence the other students rigid Headmistress (Ilene Graff) instructs Simone to keep an eye on Annabelle and get her under control.Simone however quickly learns that the real challenge is not Annabelle's behavior but the attraction budding between the two. As Annabelle pursues her teacher she unleashes the passion that has been locked deep inside Simone who must decide whether or not to enter into an affair that could cost her everything.System Requirements:Run Time: 77 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 754703762702 Manufacturer No: WOL4315D
Description of Loving Annabelle:
A lot of taboos are broken in Loving Annabelle, even if the film itself remains remarkably tasteful--even demure. The central characters are two women, a teacher and her student, and the setting is an all-girls school (shades of Lost and Delirious). Annabelle (the smoldering Erin Kelly), a senior, is a rebellious rocker chick--the Beverly Hills version that is, i.e. highlighted hair, black eyeliner, and nose ring. Her senatorial mother ships her off to boarding school to shape up. Annabelle's hard-partying ways are starting to become an embarrassment. Miss Simone Bradley (the sympathetic Diane Gaidry) is a popular poetry teacher. She's a Catholic. Annabelle is not. Simone has a boyfriend, Annabelle is gay. Looks can be deceiving, however, and there's more to both than meets the eye. For one, Simone's relationship is not as secure as it appears. For another, Annabelle's ardor is so relentless it threatens to sway sympathy against her. She seems to have no regard for the damage an affair would inflict on her teacher's career. Nonetheless, Simone is not entirely resistant to her charms. Inspired by 1931's Mädchen in Uniform, writer/director Katherine Brooks preserves the forbidden relationship at the heart of the Weimar-era classic, but drops the political subtext. Consequently, she doesn't take on more than she can handle, but Loving Annabelle still feels a little slight. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Loving Annabelle Reviews:
A very good film 
2008-09-06 - I really enjoyed the movie Loving Annabelle because it was both a good story and incredibly factual. You really come to care about the characters in the movie and wonder how things worked out for them. The story is not overshadowed by the steamy scenes but enhanced. It is worth a chance, and you will be rewarded with an excellent movie.
This one requires a strong stomach 
2008-09-06 - From the beginning of this movie, I just couldn't shake the feeling of how wrong it is - this teacher becoming involved with a student. It's more than the fact that Annabelle is under 18.... Just like parents and clergy, teachers hold a unique place of trust, authority and responsibility. Even though Annabelle was the one who pursued the relationship, that doesn't make it any more okay for Simone to cross the line.
As much as I had hoped that this would be a good movie (based on the overall good reviews), the relationship between these two was just plain inappropriate and it grossed me out! I still shudder when I think of it.
If this movie had been about a mother and her daughter becoming sexually involved, that would have disgusted me. Simone, a clearly much older woman, was Annabelle's teacher and dorm monitor. The relationship between them should have been parental in nature, never sexual.
As for other elements? The acting was not great, but I've seen worse. The filming was average - again, I've seen worse, but I've seen a lot better too. Aside from the BIG issue of a teacher becoming sexually involved with a student, I would rate the film perhaps 2 or 2.5 stars at best. Throw in the teacher-student aspect and my resulting nausea and I can't give this better than 1 star.
Only the best movie ever
2008-08-26 - I just wached this movie and I couldn't stop waching it. Like ten times in 2 days. I think is a great love story.And the sex scene is pure art.
Well-Done
2008-07-15 - A very well-done film about a very misunderstood subject. Full of romance, beauty, integrity and sensuality, this film takes you through a young teacher's struggle with the pain of the past and the younger woman who awakens in her the hidden depths of her suppressed longings.
The nexus of human emotions, love and spiritual longing have no relationship to the focal point of vulgarity that society often pivots on in their scope and interpretation about such matters between two people of the same sex. Unless you know and live it, you can't understand. But you may well try; in which case, this is a great film with which to start.
Interesting characters, but only mildly steamy 
2008-07-02 - To paraphrase the director in one of the DVD's special features interviews, the aim of "Loving Annabelle" was to tell a story about a teacher/student relationship that didn't automatically condemn every aspect of the relationship as irresponsible and horrible. You may find that to be a gutsy approach or a reprehensible one (we can talk about my own feelings over a beer if you want), but if you seek out this movie, I'm guessing that you're at least open to the idea of pretending such a relationship isn't all that bad so you can enjoy the sensual adult fare the film offers.
Alas, for those of you in such a category, I'm sad to report that there isn't very much sensual adult fare in "Loving Annabelle". There's only fleeting, rare nudity and fleeting, rare, and (sigh) discreetly-filmed sex. And that's strange, because one of the director's other motivations for making the movie was (I'm paraphrasing her again) "...to show some really hot stuff, the kind of stuff that turns me on, the kind of stuff I really like to do and have done to me when I'm in a hot relationship." I guess the director really enjoys endless worrying and endless discussions about what's right and wrong about her life.
To be fair, the story is watchable and not entirely uninteresting, just not very shocking and, to get serious for a moment, not very thematically ambitious (see, I'm not just interested in sex). In other words, typical traditional moralism, that firmly reinforces the social status quo, is very much in place at the end.
So, throughout the film, you don't get much that's all that compelling story-wise, and you don't get much erotically-charged material, either. And sometimes what erotic content you do get almost seems to be there accidentally. For example, all the scenes of the girls in their Catholic school uniforms smack of fetishism instead of an honest attempt to show what such schools are really like. But I guess viewers have to take what stimulating elements they can get here.
I will say this: we learn from the extra features that the movie was filmed on a shoestring budget and took forever to finish due to money issues; it's to its credit, then, that the movie looks as good as it does.
In the end, "Loving Annabelle" is well acted and works fine as a sort of R-rated (and a soft "R", at that) "Lifetime" movie. Just don't let the pretty women on the DVD cover and the film's subject matter get your hopes up about getting much beyond a marginal time passer.
