Desert Hearts (1985) Glo Moxie Night
While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed professor of literature is unexpectedly seduced by a carefree, spirited young lesbian. (R, 91 min.)
Showtimes
Saturday, August 23, 2025
4:00 PM
This free screening is courtesy of The Glo Center. There will be a brief lead-in discussion before the movie starts.
Ticket reservation link coming soon.
Donna Deitch’s swooning and sensual first narrative feature, Desert Hearts, was groundbreaking upon its release in 1985: a love story about two women, made entirely independently, on a shoestring budget, by a woman. In this 1959-set film, adapted from a beloved novel by Jane Rule, straitlaced East Coast professor Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) arrives in Reno to file for divorce but winds up catching the eye of someone new, the free-spirited young Cay (Patricia Charbonneau), touching off a slow seduction that unfolds against a breathtaking desert landscape. With undeniable chemistry between its two leads, an evocative jukebox soundtrack, and vivid cinematography by Robert Elswit, Desert Hearts beautifully exudes a sense of tender yearning and emotional candor. [Criterion]
Starring: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley
Director: Donna Deitch
Genre: Drama, Romance
"Desert Hearts has undeniable power."
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"In Desert Hearts, [Donna] Deitch takes lesbian cinema back to its future."
— Armond White, Out Magazine
"Desert Hearts is a fully immersive experience and a landmark for LGBTQ representation in film."
— Allyson Johnson, Cambridge Day
"Desert Hearts, a daring and accomplished first feature by perceptive director Donna Deitch, is a movie that sneaks up on you."
— William Wolf, Gannett News Service
"Desert Hearts was an important, and beautiful, first step toward a movie world where LGBTQ couples were allowed unapologetically to be themselves."
— Sean P. Means, Salt Lake Tribune
"In Deitch's steady hands, the film avoids male gaze tropes to create something uncommonly tender and real, a tale of awakening and self discovery that is nearly impossible to shake."
— Mattie Lucas, From the Front Row
"Desert Hearts ... captures its surroundings and emotional complications with bittersweet beauty and lyricism; its examination of queer yearning and longing looks withstands the test of time as resilient as a cactus in the desolate desert."
— Katie Duggan, Film Daze
"In the 1980s, movies that centered on lesbians were even more alien to the cinematic landscape than movies that centered on actual aliens. Desert Hearts continues to stand tall for presenting its sapphic protagonists in a positive and sympathetic"
— Matt Brunson, Film Frenzy
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