Sex, Lies and Sugar

Steve Balderson's new film focuses on a group of 1960s-era suburban housewives. Close-knit and neighborly, they are all bent on one-upping each other, trying to prove that each is "the hostess with the mostess." They begin a recipe club, and hold dinner parties, testing out their new casseroles. But when the gatherings become increasingly focused on boozy flirtation, the story moves swiftly from stylized and campy to a drama about irresponsibility, selfishness, and damaged people. This is an intricate landscape of desolation, unspoken desires, and empty lives laid bare. Raw and uncompromising, it is evocative of classics. Set in America during the NASA moonwalk, the moon is a metaphor for the film's tragic heroines, who are filled with mystery, secrets and the untapped potential of people who exist without really living.