Claudia Weill

Dear Claudia Weill,

Now that we've been at this letter writing thing for a little while, one of the joys of this whole venture has been getting even a few people to watch some movies they hadn't come across before. With that in mind, if there's one thing we write about here that I hope people seek out above all others, it's your film Girlfriends. As far as I'm concerned, any conversation about the history of independent film in America that doesn't include Girlfriends is irrelevant (see also: conversations about New York movies, movies about best friends, movies where Christopher Guest is hot). You've said the movie was inspired by a line in the book Advancing Paul Newman -- "This is a story of two girls, each of whom suspected the other of a more passionate connection with life" -- which might be my favorite logline ever. It's about the feeling of losing your best friend to the ultimate friendship killer: growing up. Basically, if someone is reading this who loves any movie or TV show about female friendship from the past thirty years, I promise Girlfriends did the thing they love first. This would include Girls, which -- because Lena Dunham was such a fan of yours -- you directed an episode of. It might also include My So-Called Life, which, yep, you directed as well. It probably wouldn't include the six episodes of Once and Again you directed, but I feel pretty strongly that Once and Again is consistently underrated, so if I can use this opportunity to bring it up, I'm certainly going to take it. Now that I think about it, if there's one thing we can get people to watch here, maybe it should be Once and Again. But right after that, everyone definitely check out Girlfriends.

Laura