Passes the Bechdel test

Love Is Strange

Name: Love Is Strange
Released: 2014

2014. Directed by Ira Sachs, written by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
7 women characters. 5 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 3 scenes out of 85.
Yes 3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Disagree bechdeltest.com readers give it 2 out of 3.

The film

After nearly four decades together, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) finally tie the knot in an idyllic wedding ceremony in lower Manhattan. But when George loses his job soon after, the couple must sell their apartment and - victims of the relentless New York City real estate market - temporarily live apart until they can find an affordable new home. While George moves in with two cops (Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez) who live down stairs, Ben lands in Brooklyn with his nephew (Darren Burrows), his wife (Marisa Tomei), and their temperamental teenage son (Charlie Tahan), with whom Ben shares a bunk bed. While struggling with the pain of separation, Ben and George are further challenged by the intergenerational tensions and capricious family dynamics of their new living arrangements.

Released: 18 Dec 2014
Genres: Drama, Romance
Rated: R
IMDb: 6.7 / 10
Metascore: 82 / 100
Awards: 2 wins & 24 nominations
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

George 184 lines, man
Ben 165 lines, man
Kate 118 lines, woman
Elliot 86 lines, man
Joey 75 lines, man
Ian 35 lines, man
Ted 32 lines, man
Roberto 30 lines, man
Doreen 23 lines
Mindy 22 lines, woman

Full cast, 20 people

John Lithgow as Ben
Alfred Molina as George
Marisa Tomei as Kate
Darren E. Burrows as Elliot
Charlie Tahan as Joey
Cheyenne Jackson as Ted
Manny Perez as Roberto
Christina Kirk as Mindy
Tank Burt as Doreen
Christian Coulson as Ian
John Cullum as Father Raymond
Harriet Sansom Harris as Honey
Dovie Currin as Piano Student
Daphne Gaines as Linda
Sebastian La Cause as Marco
Olya Zueva as Eugenia
Eric Tabach as Vlad
Tatyana Zbirovskaya as Zlata
Andrew Polk as Doctor
James Zeiss

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 7% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 85

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 2	0	0
3 to 4	3	4
5 to 6	6	19
7 to 8	0	8
9 to 10	11	9
11 to 12	0	23
13 to 14	31	43
15 to 16	0	0
17 to 18	0	21
19 to 20	9	8
21 to 22	12	20
23 to 24	7	12
25 to 26	0	0
27 to 28	10	38
29 to 30	4	41
31 to 32	0	8
33 to 34	0	10
35 to 36	5	8
37 to 38	12	13
39 to 40	8	4
41 to 42	0	13
43 to 44	0	16
45 to 46	7	19
47 to 48	0	10
49 to 50	0	0
51 to 52	1	24
53 to 54	0	2
55 to 56	0	1
57 to 58	0	2
59 to 60	12	28
61 to 62	0	25
63 to 64	0	0
65 to 66	8	23
67 to 68	0	0
69 to 70	6	2
71 to 72	13	104
73 to 74	0	14
75 to 76	0	45
77 to 78	0	23
79 to 80	0	0
81 to 82	0	27
83 to 84	0	0
85 to 85	0	0

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.

EUGENIA: Zlata, you have the list. ZLATA: It’s in the kitchen.

MINDY: I hate coop’s. HONEY: But it’s so hard to find a condo in Manhattan.

MINDY: I thought we had it all figured out already! HONEY: Shhh, Mindy. Quiet. MINDY: Why are we even having this conversation? I’m the only one with the extra bedroom.

HONEY: It just doesn’t make sense that they go live 2 1/2 hours away. MINDY: It’s an hour and a half, actually.

MINDY: By car. HONEY: They don’t drive! MINDY: They can very well learn how to. HONEY: Are you really serious, Mindy?!

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 20 are women's.

165 lines from women, 667 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

7 women and 11 men in the cast. 5 women and 13 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 4 of 898. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 180 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 20% of the words (1,672), men 80% (6,622).

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

Exhibit F: behind the camera

2 of the 14 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 37% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Ira Sachs (man)
Written by: Ira Sachs (man), Mauricio Zacharias (man)
Produced by: Lucas Joaquin (man), Lars Knudsen (man), Ira Sachs (man), Jayne Baron Sherman (gender not listed), Jay Van Hoy (man)
Shot by: Christos Voudouris (man)
Edited by: Affonso Gonçalves (man), Michael Taylor (man)
Production design by: Amy Williams (woman)
Costumes by: Arjun Bhasin (man)
Cast by: Avy Kaufman (woman)