A straight woman upends numerous gay lives in ‘Milkwater’ [Reel Love Film Festival]

A review of the new black comedy, at the Reel Love Film Fest this week

This week, leading up through Valentine’s Day, I’ll be reviewing films out of the Reel Love Film Festival. Reel Love is a new virtual fest “dedicated to honoring the future of love on screen and its profound cinematic legacy thus far.”

The Reel Love Film Festival’s LGBTQ+-centric feature selection is somewhat lacking for a festival whose aim is to show “the future of love on screen.” Aside from (excellent) closing-night selection Shiva Baby, about a bisexual girl struggling to keep her life together during a particularly chaotic shiva, the only other full-length film tagged as LGBTQ+ on the festival’s schedule is Milkwater, writer-director Morgan Ingari’s debut. And, while it’s extremely watchable, well-made and well-acted, both funny and sad, it’s a bit disappointing that the film centers on a straight white woman to the detriment of the talented, multi-racial spectrum of mostly queer people who orbit around her.

Outside of that context, though, Milkwater is a perfectly fine watch.

The aforementioned straight woman is Milo (Molly Bernard), a thirtysomething music store saleswoman who’s frustrated with her life…