20 Years of Imagine Me & You

How did this forgotten rom-com become a cult classic?

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20 years have passed since the release of Imagine Me & You, the lesbian romantic comedy starring Lena Headey and Piper Perabo. At the time, many critics gave the film negative reviews, arguing that its use of rom-com clichés was tired and uninteresting. Queer viewers feel differently. Autostraddle placed Imagine Me & You in the 15th spot on their list of the 100 Best Lesbian Movies Of All Time, and many lesbians and queer women call the film a favorite, one they can return to time and time again. How did we get here?

Writer/director Ol Parker wrote the film as a means to explore the concept of love at first sight. He fell in love with his (reportedly now-ex) wife Thandiwe Newton the moment they first met, and as he wrote in his director’s statement about the film, he wanted that concept to be the driving force of the movie. Perabo plays Rachel, a woman who meets the love of her life, Luce (Headey), as she’s walking down the aisle about to marry someone else. Though it’s been said that Imagine Me & You was conceptualized as a story between a man and a woman, I’ve found no evidence to corroborate this claim, and both Parker and the film’s cast downplayed the lesbian element of the story.

An independent film, Imagine Me & You premiered at TIFF in 2005, and recieved more attention than expected. The movie was picked up by Universal in the UK, while Fox Searchlight bought the rights to distribute the film in the United States. Still, even with the support of these major players, the film did poorly at the box office, grossing only $2 million worldwide.

Imagine Me & You had its theatrical release in 2006, and as you might expect from that era, press about the film was odd, to say the least. One interviewer asked if Headey and Perabo wished they’d had more sex in the film. Many journalists compared it to Brokeback Mountain, which had come out the year before, but both women consistently shut down that line of thinking. “I’d say there is no relation at all,” Headey responded in one interview. “We’re not in a gay film. We have no horses, and this is a love story,” Perabo contended, echoing a common refrain on the press tour.

Indeed, Headey and Perabo both suggested, in multiple interviews, that Imagine Me & You is not a gay movie, but rather a film about two people falling in love, and about the issue of timing. Considering how many critics shoehorned the film into the nascent “gay movie” category and how unfamiliar many audiences were with gay love stories on the big screen at this time, this lack of vision isn’t surprising.

Luce (Lena Headey, left) and Rachel (Piper Perabo, right) on Rachel’s wedding day.

At the same time, Perabo thought the film’s lack of focus on the gender of its two leads might have lured more straight folks into the theater. “Hopefully we can get everybody there, and that it just sort of happens so quickly and perfectly that you don’t sort of realize that it’s two girls until you’re walking out of the cinema,” she suggested. Heady noted that while some American viewers seemed disappointed there weren’t more “issues” in the film, that’s one of its charms.

Despite the cast and crew’s optimism about the movie’s prospects, it didn’t fare too well in the mainstream. Along with a lackluster showing at the box office, Imagine Me & You failed to win over the critics. In his scathing review, Roger Ebert wrote, “Here’s a movie that begins with a tired romantic formula, and tries to redeem it with lesbianism. And not merely lesbianism, but responsible lesbianism [...].” Xan Brooks of The Guardian concluded that “This yuppie romance finds itself gate-crashed by a rogue lesbian element and is therefore briefly interesting.’ The Austin Chronicle’s Marrit Ingman cheekily suggested, “Imagine the movie without its same-sex hook, and its lack of substance is apparent.”

Lesbian and queer viewers hold it in much higher regard. It’s often described as a “comfort” film, one that fans can put on when they need a pick-me-up. Many enjoy the fact that everything works out in the end, without much conflict in the lead-up. While the film leans into many of the most common rom-com tropes, it avoids lesbian film tropes, namely, tragic endings and terrible husbands. (Piper Perabo’s character, Rachel, has a very nice and understanding spouse, played by Matthew Goode.)

The film gained a lot of traction online in the decades following its theatrical run. On Tumblr (and, one imagines, in real life), the line “You’re a wanker, number nine” became a coded lesbian phrase of sorts, an in-joke used to build a sense of community. The “Am I gay? I’m ecstatic” scene was similarly popular as an endlessly rebloggable GIF.

While Headey and Perabo maintained that Imagine Me & You is not a gay movie, gay viewers beg to differ. Many sapphic fans consider it one of the greatest (if not the greatest) lesbian comedies of all time, though, to be fair, it doesn’t have a lot of competition. Based on comments by the film’s director and cast, it appears the assumed audience for the movie was primarily straight folks. This means that they’re aren’t any cheeky jokes or nods to lesbian culture that would appeal specifically to queer viewers.

Luce and Rachel during the famous “You’re a wanker, number 9” scene.

Instead, what appeals to lesbian and queer viewers are its two charming leads with great chemistry, its sweet tone, and the uplifting love story it tells. While Perabo talked of “tricking” straight audiences into seeing a film about a lesbian relationship, lesbian and queer audiences walked into theaters with an entirely different mindset. For them, the film’s appeal lay in its ability to finally interpolate lesbians and bisexuals into the romantic comedy genre. Even if assimilation isn’t the goal, there is some satisfaction to be found in the film’s so-called normalcy.

Like all films, Imagine Me & You has inherent sociopolitical meaning, but it’s not a film with a forthright political message. Indeed, while many queer viewers have considered the impact of the movie as a mainstream lesbian rom-com, what really draws people to the film is that it feels good to watch. In his review, Ebert suggested that Perabo’s earlier lesbian film, Lost & Delirious, is a much better movie than Imagine Me & You. I’d wager that the majority of lesbian and queer viewers prefer the latter film, which entirely avoids the melodramatic tragedy of the former.

Even as some folks hedge their love of the film by pointing out its flaws, fans of the movie find themselves unable to deny the pleasure of watching it. 20 years on, that pleasure doesn’t seem to have waned, even as lesbian rom-coms have become slightly more common. Queer moviegoers still express a desire for more cheesy, sweet lesbian movies, and few fit the bill better than Imagine Me & You. Headey and Perabo’s delightful chemistry hasn’t dimmed, and in this case, the formula works. The film feels timeless in a sense, even though several pairs of extremely low-waisted jeans remind you that it hails from an era of regrettable fashion trends.

So how did lesbians and bisexuals turn an otherwise forgotten rom-com from the 2000s into a cult classic? They took a film supposedly made for the masses and held it close, bringing it into the lesbian community as a sacred object. Such fans have a relationship with Imagine Me & You that diverges significantly from mainstream opinions of the film. They responded to the movie on an emotional level, creating a connection that remains to this day. In all likelihood, this intimate (yet widespread) relationship will continue for years to come.

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