Why Bound is the per­fect queer Valentine’s film

With a $6 mil­lion bud­get and a direc­to­r­i­al part­ner­ship lack­ing fea­ture film expe­ri­ence, 1996’s Bound was sup­pos­ed­ly a mere step­ping stone towards The Matrix fran­chise for Lana and Lily Wachows­ki. Stu­dios were con­vinced that nobody want­ed to see queer women in the main­stream. Jen­nifer Tilly (Vio­let) and Gina Ger­shon (Corky) were respec­tive­ly told accept­ing their roles would dam­age their tra­jec­to­ry irrev­o­ca­bly. From an out­side per­spec­tive, the last theme asso­ci­at­ed with Bound would be love.

Fast for­ward 23 years, and a 2019 BFI Valentine’s screen­ing of the Wachowskis’ fea­ture debut sug­gests oth­er­wise. Among a sea of old­er view­ers per­haps famil­iar with Bound on its ini­tial release, sit doe-eyed teenagers, embrac­ing the mag­ic of a film made before some of them were born. In the dark­ness, there’s a qui­et uni­fi­ca­tion in love. Between the audi­ence mem­bers, there are unspeak­able wounds from Sec­tion 28, fresh faces that waved in equal mar­riage only six years before. Unknow­ing­ly, Bound asserts itself as the per­fect Valentine’s film – undoubt­ed­ly a land­mark for por­tray­ing women’s love onscreen.

The ide­al Valentine’s view­ing should con­tain a deeply com­plex roman­tic bond, an uplift­ing dose of ener­gy, and the unbeat­able sense of ever­last­ing hope. With a clas­sic noir struc­ture, Bound sub­con­scious­ly ticks each box, mas­querad­ing as an action-packed gang heist gone wrong. Every sec­ond on screen is pas­sion­ate­ly charged, from Violet’s doll faced ​“Do I make you ner­vous, Corky?” to stolen brush­es of the skin, illic­it con­nec­tions form­ing under the nose of an obliv­i­ous chau­vin­is­tic pig. It’s a win for women every­where. And it’s exciting.

The Wachowskis know how to do sexy. Regard­less of watch­ing alone or with oth­ers, sex­u­al­i­ty oozes from every speck of cin­e­mat­ic colour, the dev­il in each dis­tinc­tive detail. Corky and Violet’s first sex­u­al encounter feels almost porno­graph­ic, giv­ing lay­ered nuance to the nar­ra­tive tropes typ­i­cal­ly used to sat­is­fy a man’s needs. The line ​“I’m try­ing to seduce you” ref­er­ences The Grad­u­ate, but here firm­ly cements a queer roman­tic con­fi­dence pre­vi­ous­ly lambasted.

For many queer peo­ple, there exists a fan­ta­sy of encoun­ter­ing the object of their desire in the right place at the right time; Bound acts as an unashamed cin­e­mat­ic artic­u­la­tion of that. When Corky asks why Vio­let is try­ing to seduce her, she replies ​“because I want to”. This pub­lic mas­ter­class in queer own­er­ship of feel­ings sets the prece­dent of accep­tance – a sexy, safe­ty blan­ket that mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties can enjoy repeatedly.

What’s most sur­pris­ing is that Bound’s nar­ra­tive is beau­ti­ful­ly tinged with com­e­dy, but the Wachowskis make it clear – you’re not laugh­ing at the idea of two women in love, you’re laugh­ing at the human­is­tic mishaps involved in get­ting there. Refresh­ing, queer emo­tion is nev­er viewed as the butt of a joke. Instead, the com­e­dy deliv­ers itself through sub­tle direc­to­r­i­al choic­es – the exchange of a cof­fee cup, the drop­ping of an ear­ring down a sink. Queer joy makes itself known, fur­ther flesh­ing out the real­ism effort­less­ly built into each scene.

The pair­ing of Vio­let and Corky is a spec­ta­cle in its own mer­it. Fol­low­ing on from her role as icy top­less dancer Cristal in Show­girls, Gina Gershon’s turn as the mas­cu­line-cod­ed Corky made her a gay icon two times over. Between the pair, she proves that gen­der is a con­struct that sex­u­al­i­ty and desire both tran­scend. As Gershon’s coun­ter­part, Jen­nifer Tilly does what she does best, breath­less­ly leans into a renewed idea of self-assur­ance. Vio­let seduces with no regrets, long fin­ger­nails and an indi­vid­ual resilience that can be mapped onto the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty. This pair are not car­i­ca­tures of queer­ness, rather a yin-yang dance between untapped facets of iden­ti­ty that make falling in love the eas­i­est thing in the world.

Aside from queer roman­tic entan­gle­ments that defy time, there’s some­thing more mean­ing­ful to watch­ing Bound with hind­sight of the Wachowskis’ per­son­al jour­ney with gen­der iden­ti­ty. Though Bound acts pri­mar­i­ly as a vehi­cle for two cis­gen­dered women’s affec­tion, revis­it­ing it serves as a reminder to fall in love with your true self. Much of the Wachowskis’ work touch­es on their per­son­al tran­si­tions, with the idea of love lib­er­at­ing all arguably the fore of their the­mat­ic choic­es. Con­tex­tu­al­is­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of love through this lens is a Valentine’s gift that oblit­er­ates exist­ing socio-cap­i­tal­ist norms.

Most impor­tant­ly, Bound pro­vides the roman­tic end­ing that any queer per­son deserves to see rep­re­sent­ed. Unlike many of the cin­e­mat­ic greats that came after it, Vio­let and Corky mud­dle through their ama­teur crime spree to leave, in love, togeth­er. No deaths. No grip of gris­ly time peri­ods. No man or ​‘high pow­er’ to deter­mine the worth of their love. The role of the male sub­plot (anchored by Joe Pantoliano’s Cae­sar) is need­ed, but pure­ly to show that queer life doesn’t have to suf­fer at the hands of het­ero­nor­ma­tiv­i­ty. As a filmic arte­fact, it’s price­less. As a Valentine’s Day pick fuelled by romance, sex and life itself, Bound is the unri­valled match in sat­is­fac­tion that every­one can see them­selves in.