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For so many people, going home for the holidays is as stressful as going to the dentist for a root canal. While these are the people you ideally should be able to be your entire self with, your family’s expectations of the person you should be can weigh you down.
This can be particularly difficult for folks in the LGBTQ community whose family might be less accepting than they would like. Many folks feel pressure to remain in the closet at home in their family life due to these unrealistic expectations. Jenna Laurenzo’s film Lez Bomb illustrates this dynamic perfectly, as her character Lauren tries to navigate her plan to come out to her parents at Thanksgiving.
In the movie, her girlfriend gets mistaken for her best friend while her long-term roommate Austin gets mistaken for her partner. As the trip goes on, it becomes harder and harder to unravel this assumption through typical family holiday shenanigans.
“As someone who had to come out, I always was looking for characters and representation that reflected those experiences and, in particular, I really wanted comedies, and I really wanted happy endings,” Laurenzo said in an interview with HRC. “I also loved all the dysfunctional family stories in films that we don’t really see that much of anymore. I wanted to tell this relatable family comedy with a queer twist and have Thanksgiving as a backdrop because it is astonishing that in 2018, we haven’t had that yet.”
Lorenzo hopes that Lez Bomb inspires people to come forward and share their own coming out stories this holiday season. You can watch it in theaters today and also on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Cable on Demand.
Check out the website here or you can check out the trailer down below.
