Queer couple Cleo and Judy live in and run a kitschy love motel. One day, their monotonous routine is interrupted when a dominatrix named Candy checks into the motel, immediately catching Cleo’s eye. Cleo and Candy soon begin a clandestine sexual relationship, but when Judy catches wind of Cleo’s cheating, her jealousy threatens the safety and sanity of all three women.
Director’s Vision for ‘Romance Package for Two’
Films about queer women tend to follow certain patterns. They’re sensuous and romantic, and the conflict comes from outside sources — unaccepting families, society, men. Movies like this helped me become who I am as an artist and a human being. But where are the films for the angry, jealous, hot-headed queers who self-sabotage, who hurt each other, who lash out at an unforgiving world by way of their lovers and partners?
ROMANCE PACKAGE FOR TWO is my effort to fill this gap. I’ve hurt queer people just as they’ve hurt me; after all, a relationship is a relationship. This isn’t a film to glorify queer love but rather to humanize it.
While quarantined in my Brooklyn apartment in 2020, I became obsessed with love motels. Unstuck in time, these bastions of camp felt like an escape from reality at a time when reality was particularly unappealing. However, as I read more about these destinations that are scattered across the country, what fascinated me even more was their false promises. Many of them are filthy – disgruntled Yelp reviews mention everything from the stench of cigarette smoke to unidentified stains to bugs and rodents. What can romance, or sex, or love possibly look and feel like in these conditions?
The love motel in RPFT is the keystone of the story in terms of imagery and theme. I see it as a character in and of itself — an especially cruel one. Its campy decor mocks the three women as they wallow in the ugliest parts of romance. As the wounds of Cleo and Judy’s relationship fester, roaches crawl out of the drains: love rotting from the inside.
If falling in love is messy, falling out of love is even messier. Heartbreak can feel like the whole world is falling apart, like love itself is a sick joke. Making ROMANCE PACKAGE FOR TWO was an exercise in coming to terms with some of my own messiest, most painful experiences as a queer person navigating romance and sex. By taking the time to delve deep into the psychologies of three different characters who all hold parts of me and parts of people who have had huge impacts on my life, I forced myself to look at past relationships from different angles, peering around the blind spots in my own perspective. It was ultimately as painful as it was therapeutic to write and direct, ending up my most personal film to date.
