If These Walls Could Talk 2
Encyclopedia
If These Walls Could Talk 2 is an Emmy Award
-winning 2000 television movie
in the United States
, broadcast on HBO. It follows three separate storylines about lesbian
couples in three different time periods. As with the original If These Walls Could Talk
, all the stories are set in the same house.
The segments were directed by Jane Anderson
, Martha Coolidge
, and Anne Heche
respectively.
) and Abby (Marian Seldes
) sit in a cinema watching a lesbian-themed film The Children's Hour. A couple walks out of the theater in disgust at the film, and a group of kids laugh when they see Edith and Abby holding hands. Later at the home they have shared for 30 years, Abby falls from a ladder. At the hospital, doctors tell Edith that Abby may have suffered a stroke. Edith spends the night in the waiting room and in the morning she learns that Abby died during the night, and none of the hospital workers informed her after it had happened.
Edith telephones Abby's nephew, Ted (Paul Giamatti
), to tell him the news. Before Ted and his family come for the funeral, Edith removes all traces that they were a couple. She makes it look like they had separate bedrooms and removes photographs of the two of them together. At the house afterwards, Ted and Edith talk about the fact that the house was in Abby's name. Although Edith contributed equally to the mortgage, she legally owns no part of it. As Alice packs up Abby's belongings, Ted tells Edith that he would consider letting Edith staying in the house and paying him rent. Edith tells him that Abby would have wanted her to stay in the house, as that was what they always talked about. Ted eventually tells her that it would be better if he sells the house and she finds a place of her own although he says that he'll wait till she finds a new place before putting the house on the market. The family leaves, with Ted telling Edith that he will be in touch in a couple of weeks to discuss what she is going to do.
), a young student, now shares the house with three friends, all lesbians. They face conflict with the feminist
group they are part of when the other women do not want to include lesbian issues despite the fact that Linda and her friends helped to found the group and fought for free contraception on campus with their straight friends.
At a lesbian bar they have not been to before, they are surprised and disappointed to see women apparently fulfilling traditional butch and femme
roles. They laugh at Amy (Chloë Sevigny
), a young butch woman who is wearing a tie. Amy asks Linda to dance but she refuses while her friends are still there. The others soon leave and Linda stays behind and dances with Amy. Later, Amy gives Linda a ride home on her motorcycle and they kiss. Linda invites Amy to return the next day.
The next day Linda and the others are arguing with a woman from the feminist group when Amy arrives. Linda is embarrassed and is short with Amy who quickly leaves. Linda's friends tease her about Amy and question how they can be taken seriously as feminists if they associate with people like Amy. They cannot understand why a woman would dress like a man when they have fought so hard to escape such stereotypical roles.
Linda goes to Amy's house and apologizes. They sleep together. The next morning Linda sees a picture of Amy as a child, dressed like a boy. She asks Amy if Amy is supposed to be the man and Linda the woman. Amy says no and accuses Linda of being afraid that people will know what she is if she is seen with Amy.
Amy goes to Linda's house for dinner. Linda urges her friends to give Amy a chance but an awkward evening deteriorates when Linda's friends laugh at Amy and try to make her change her clothes. Amy leaves, upset. Linda follows her home and tells her that she was never ashamed of Amy, but only of herself. They reconcile.
) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres
), a couple hoping to have a baby together. They hope to get a sperm donation from Tom (George Newbern
) and Arnold (Mitchell Anderson
), a gay couple, but when the men are reluctant to agree to stay out of the baby's life, the women decide not to go ahead. Later, Kal tells Fran that she does not want to know the father of the baby and they agree to use an anonymous donor. They look for donors on the internet and find a company to use. Going through endless profiles of potential donors, Kal gets upset that she herself cannot get Fran pregnant.
When they discover that Fran is ovulating, Kal hurries to the donor company to get the sperm. She inseminates Fran, but with no success. They share their worries for their child. They know that their baby will face discrimination but hope that their love for each other and their child will be enough. After three attempts to get pregnant, they go to a doctor to help them conceive. Shortly afterwards they discover that Fran is pregnant.
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
-winning 2000 television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, broadcast on HBO. It follows three separate storylines about lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
couples in three different time periods. As with the original If These Walls Could Talk
If These Walls Could Talk
If These Walls Could Talk is a 1996 made for television movie, broadcast on HBO. It follows the plights of three different women and their experiences with abortion. Each of the three stories takes place in the same house, 22 years each: 1952, 1974, and 1996. All three segments were co-written by...
, all the stories are set in the same house.
The segments were directed by Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson is an American actress-turned-award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director. She has written and directed one feature film, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio and wrote the script for the Nicolas Cage film It Could Happen to You.- Career :Prior to film directing, Anderson...
, Martha Coolidge
Martha Coolidge
Martha Coolidge is an American film director and former President of the Directors Guild of America. -Career:Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Ms. Coolidge first made her reputation by directing many award winning documentaries in New York before moving out to Hollywood in 1976. She spent several...
, and Anne Heche
Anne Heche
Anne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually landed supporting roles in feature films, and in 1997 appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer,...
respectively.
1961
An elderly couple, Edith (Vanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
) and Abby (Marian Seldes
Marian Seldes
Marian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...
) sit in a cinema watching a lesbian-themed film The Children's Hour. A couple walks out of the theater in disgust at the film, and a group of kids laugh when they see Edith and Abby holding hands. Later at the home they have shared for 30 years, Abby falls from a ladder. At the hospital, doctors tell Edith that Abby may have suffered a stroke. Edith spends the night in the waiting room and in the morning she learns that Abby died during the night, and none of the hospital workers informed her after it had happened.
Edith telephones Abby's nephew, Ted (Paul Giamatti
Paul Giamatti
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. Giamatti began his career as a supporting actor in several films produced during the 1990s including Private Parts, The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, The Negotiator, and Man on the Moon, before earning lead roles in several projects in the...
), to tell him the news. Before Ted and his family come for the funeral, Edith removes all traces that they were a couple. She makes it look like they had separate bedrooms and removes photographs of the two of them together. At the house afterwards, Ted and Edith talk about the fact that the house was in Abby's name. Although Edith contributed equally to the mortgage, she legally owns no part of it. As Alice packs up Abby's belongings, Ted tells Edith that he would consider letting Edith staying in the house and paying him rent. Edith tells him that Abby would have wanted her to stay in the house, as that was what they always talked about. Ted eventually tells her that it would be better if he sells the house and she finds a place of her own although he says that he'll wait till she finds a new place before putting the house on the market. The family leaves, with Ted telling Edith that he will be in touch in a couple of weeks to discuss what she is going to do.
1972
Linda (Michelle WilliamsMichelle Williams (actress)
Michelle Ingrid Williams is an American actress. After starting her career with television guest appearances in the early 1990s, Williams achieved recognition for her role as Jen Lindley on the WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek, which she played from 1998 to 2003...
), a young student, now shares the house with three friends, all lesbians. They face conflict with the feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
group they are part of when the other women do not want to include lesbian issues despite the fact that Linda and her friends helped to found the group and fought for free contraception on campus with their straight friends.
At a lesbian bar they have not been to before, they are surprised and disappointed to see women apparently fulfilling traditional butch and femme
Butch and femme
Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behavior, style, expression, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures...
roles. They laugh at Amy (Chloë Sevigny
Chloë Sevigny
Chloë Stevens Sevigny is an American film actress, fashion designer and former model. Sevigny gained reputation for her eclectic fashion sense and developed a broad career in the fashion industry in the mid 1990s, both for modeling and for her work at New York's Sassy magazine, which labeled her...
), a young butch woman who is wearing a tie. Amy asks Linda to dance but she refuses while her friends are still there. The others soon leave and Linda stays behind and dances with Amy. Later, Amy gives Linda a ride home on her motorcycle and they kiss. Linda invites Amy to return the next day.
The next day Linda and the others are arguing with a woman from the feminist group when Amy arrives. Linda is embarrassed and is short with Amy who quickly leaves. Linda's friends tease her about Amy and question how they can be taken seriously as feminists if they associate with people like Amy. They cannot understand why a woman would dress like a man when they have fought so hard to escape such stereotypical roles.
Linda goes to Amy's house and apologizes. They sleep together. The next morning Linda sees a picture of Amy as a child, dressed like a boy. She asks Amy if Amy is supposed to be the man and Linda the woman. Amy says no and accuses Linda of being afraid that people will know what she is if she is seen with Amy.
Amy goes to Linda's house for dinner. Linda urges her friends to give Amy a chance but an awkward evening deteriorates when Linda's friends laugh at Amy and try to make her change her clothes. Amy leaves, upset. Linda follows her home and tells her that she was never ashamed of Amy, but only of herself. They reconcile.
2000
The house is now inhabited by Fran (Sharon StoneSharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen Lee DeGeneres is an American stand-up comedienne, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was also a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season....
), a couple hoping to have a baby together. They hope to get a sperm donation from Tom (George Newbern
George Newbern
George Young Newbern is an American television and film actor best known for his roles as Bryan MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and its sequel Father of the Bride Part II as well as Danny in Friends...
) and Arnold (Mitchell Anderson
Mitchell Anderson
Mitchell Ogren Anderson is an American character actor.Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, to a retail store owner mother and a father who worked in business...
), a gay couple, but when the men are reluctant to agree to stay out of the baby's life, the women decide not to go ahead. Later, Kal tells Fran that she does not want to know the father of the baby and they agree to use an anonymous donor. They look for donors on the internet and find a company to use. Going through endless profiles of potential donors, Kal gets upset that she herself cannot get Fran pregnant.
When they discover that Fran is ovulating, Kal hurries to the donor company to get the sperm. She inseminates Fran, but with no success. They share their worries for their child. They know that their baby will face discrimination but hope that their love for each other and their child will be enough. After three attempts to get pregnant, they go to a doctor to help them conceive. Shortly afterwards they discover that Fran is pregnant.
1961
- Vanessa RedgraveVanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
as Edith Tree - Marian SeldesMarian SeldesMarian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...
as Abby Hedley - Paul GiamattiPaul GiamattiPaul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. Giamatti began his career as a supporting actor in several films produced during the 1990s including Private Parts, The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, The Negotiator, and Man on the Moon, before earning lead roles in several projects in the...
as Ted Hedley - Elizabeth PerkinsElizabeth PerkinsElizabeth Ann Perkins is an American actress. Her film roles have included Big, The Flintstones, Miracle on 34th Street, About Last Night..., and Avalon...
as Alice Hedley - Jenny O'Hara as Marge Carpenter
- Marley McClean as Maggie Hedley
1972
- Michelle WilliamsMichelle Williams (actress)Michelle Ingrid Williams is an American actress. After starting her career with television guest appearances in the early 1990s, Williams achieved recognition for her role as Jen Lindley on the WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek, which she played from 1998 to 2003...
as Linda - Chloë SevignyChloë SevignyChloë Stevens Sevigny is an American film actress, fashion designer and former model. Sevigny gained reputation for her eclectic fashion sense and developed a broad career in the fashion industry in the mid 1990s, both for modeling and for her work at New York's Sassy magazine, which labeled her...
as Amy - Nia LongNia LongNia Talita Long is an American actress and occasional music video director. She is best known for her roles in the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Third Watch, and the films Boiler Room, Soul Food, Love Jones, The Best Man, Big Momma's House, Big Momma's House 2, Are We There...
as Karen - Natasha LyonneNatasha Lyonne-Early life:Lyonne was born Natasha Braunstein in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Yvette Lyonne, a product licensing consultant, and Aaron Braunstein, a native of Brooklyn who worked as a boxing promoter. Lyonne grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household...
as Jeanne - Heather McCombHeather McCombHeather McComb is an American actress.McComb started acting at age 2 in a commercial for Publisher's Clearing House. When she appeared in the telefilm Generation X in 1996, she became the first actress to portray the X-Men character of Jubilee on screen...
as Diane - Amy CarlsonAmy CarlsonAmy Lynn Carlson is an American actress best known for playing Josie Watts on Another World and Alex Taylor on Third Watch. More recently, she played Kelly Gaffney on the short-lived NBC courtroom drama, Law & Order: Trial by Jury. She currently plays Linda Reagan on the CBS drama Blue Bloods...
as Michelle - Lee GarlingtonLee GarlingtonAnn Leslie "Lee" Garlington is an American actress.Garlington was born in Teaneck, New Jersey. She has guest starred in a number of notable television series, including The West Wing, 7th Heaven, 8 Simple Rules, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Judging Amy, L.A...
as Georgette
2000
- Sharon StoneSharon StoneSharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
as Fran - Ellen DeGeneresEllen DeGeneresEllen Lee DeGeneres is an American stand-up comedienne, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was also a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season....
as Kal - Regina KingRegina KingRegina King is an American film and television actress. She is well known for her role as Mary Jenkins's studious daughter, Brenda Jenkins, on the 1980s sitcom, 227, and for her critically acclaimed supporting role in the feature film Jerry Maguire...
as Allie - Kathy NajimyKathy NajimyKathy Ann Najimy is an American actress, most notable as Olive Massery on the television series Veronica's Closet, Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act and the voice of Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill. Prior to her film work, she was best known for two Off Broadway shows...
as Doctor - Mitchell AndersonMitchell AndersonMitchell Ogren Anderson is an American character actor.Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, to a retail store owner mother and a father who worked in business...
as Arnold - George NewbernGeorge NewbernGeorge Young Newbern is an American television and film actor best known for his roles as Bryan MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and its sequel Father of the Bride Part II as well as Danny in Friends...
as Tom
Awards and nominations
- Emmy Awards
- Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Vanessa Redgrave (won)
- Outstanding Made for Television Movie (nomination)
- Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie (nomination)
- Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (nomination)
- Golden Globe Awards
- Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV – Vanessa Redgrave (won)
- NAACP Image Awards
- Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special – Nia Long (nomination)
- Screen Actors Guild AwardsScreen Actors Guild AwardsA Screen Actors Guild Award is an accolade given by the Screen Actors Guild to recognize outstanding performances by its members. The statuette given, a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy, is called "The Actor"...
- Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries – Vanessa Redgrave (won)
- Satellite AwardsSatellite AwardsThe Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
- Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special – Vanessa Redgrave (nomination)
- Women in Film Crystal + Lucy AwardsWomen in Film Crystal + Lucy AwardsFirst presented in 1977, Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards are presented to honor women in communications and media. The awards include the Crystal Award, the Lucy Award, the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award, the MaxMara Face of the Future Award, and the Kodak Vision Award...
- Lucy Award (2000) to the Creators and Cast of If These Walls Could TalkIf These Walls Could TalkIf These Walls Could Talk is a 1996 made for television movie, broadcast on HBO. It follows the plights of three different women and their experiences with abortion. Each of the three stories takes place in the same house, 22 years each: 1952, 1974, and 1996. All three segments were co-written by...
and If These Walls Could Talk 2If These Walls Could Talk 2If These Walls Could Talk 2 is an Emmy Award-winning 2000 television movie in the United States, broadcast on HBO. It follows three separate storylines about lesbian couples in three different time periods...
- in recognition of excellence and innovation in a creative work that has enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television
- Lucy Award (2000) to the Creators and Cast of If These Walls Could Talk