Written and directed by Lissette Feliciano
Starring Lorenza Izzo, Bryan Craig, Simu Liu
Runtime 1 hour 24 minutes
Currently playing virtually at SXSW

by Emily Maesar, Staff Writer

Abortion is such a massive, nuanced, and completely personal choice. Films about abortion are often emotional and specific, regardless of their genre. Women Is Losers is all of those things, but it also aims to give the subject the historical and financial context it often lacks in modern stories about abortion. All of which I think writer/director Lissette Feliciano handles with astounding care. 

Women Is Losers, which is named after the Janis Joplin song, is about a girl named Celina living in the late 1960s/early 1970s in San Francisco. She’s a Catholic school girl, whose slightly older boyfriend, Mateo, is returning from Vietnam. When she and her best friend, Marty, both get pregnant, they’re forced to see a dentist for absortions, since the practice is still illegal in the United States. 

Here is where the film actually makes it’s stance quite loudly. Although, it did take me almost the whole film to decide if it was coming from the pro-choice stance it was stating in dialogue, through no fault of the film. Abortion being illegal doesn’t stop it from being performed–it just means there’s less regulation to make it safe. And it’s this fact of life that causes Marty to die during her procedure, leaving Celina terrified and still pregnant. She continues with her life, raising her son through the end of the 60s and into the 70s as a working-class, single mother. 

What’s interesting about Women Is Losers is that I probably wouldn’t say “it’s a film about abortion,” if we didn’t end the story in 1973. Which was the year of Roe v. Wade, the historic Supreme Court case that ushered in the start of legal and safe abortions in the United States. If Marty hadn’t died, then Celina’s life would have been very different, but even though one young girl’s death had nothing to do with the passing of safer abortions, in the context of the story it feels like such a monumental emotional win. 

Now, I said earlier that I wasn’t sure how the film actually felt about the debate on choice until the end. That’s true, but I don’t think it’s because of anything the film did or didn’t do. I’m just cautious of stories about abortion, but have the lead carry the pregnancy to term. Even if the story says it’s pro-choice, which Women Is Losers does, it might fall into anti-choice messaging in it’s execution. 

I waffle back and forth on this with films like Juno, because I understand that there wouldn’t be a plot without the pregnancy, but the way it gets to Juno’s choice is pretty anti-choice by way of guilt. Especially because you’ve got films like Obvious Child, that manage to be some of the most heartfelt and funny filmmaking about the subject ever filmed, no need to have the lead change their mind. Women Is Losers falls somewhere in the middle for me, in terms of execution. Which is not to say it does anything wrong. In fact, I would say it’s pretty damn realistic as far as reasons to keep a pregnancy goes, especially for the time period.

Despite the many sad and heartbreaking things that happen in Women Is Losers, though… it’s fun. It’s an immersive joy, in all honesty, despite it’s very serious topics. It does a lot of fourth-wall breaking, which is so delightful. It’s shot beautifully, I truly never noticed any of the anarchisms they mention at the top of the film because the story is lovely and engrossing. Plus, it cares about its characters. It cares about the nuance of not just abortion, but about what it’s like to have to make choices like the ones Celina does. They’re hard choices, but Women Is Losers is about resilience and love, in all the best ways.