Bechdel Test Movie List

Test 1 (pass). Multiple named female characters. Nat (main character), Naomi (Nat's friend), Chloe (Nat's husband's ex girlfriend and current friend), Helen (Nat's coworker), and Clare (Nat's coworker). Test 2 (pass) there is a lot of conversing between all the female characters. Test 3 (pass) Although the female characters spend a majority of their time talking about men, the first conversation there is between women is with Nat, Helen and Clare.

Helen: So was it a dream?
Nat: Well, we ticked every wedding box. Cake. Sweaty Uncle’s dancing to Queen. People we thought were dead flying in from Canada. It was very wedding-y.
Clare: It’s so romantic. Just like a Hugh Grant Film.
Nat: It was amazing, wasn’t it? Did you like the flowers? We…
Helen: I’m sorry, but can we do this at lunch?
Nat: Right. Absolutely Helen. Ruthlessly efficient, as always, we should not be talking about (British accent, didn’t catch the word she said) on company time.
Clare: No.
Nat: What’s the story?
Helen: While you were on your holiday, I took the initiative and started gathering ideas for Guy Harrap. He’s taken over his father’s industrial solvent and bleach empire. You weren’t here, but he basically wants solvents and bleach to be sexy.
Clare: F*** off.
A call from Nat’s husband interrupts the conversation then the women start talking about how attractive Guy is.

Other conversations topics include: married life, work, fashion (ballet flats, lingerie), past relationships and vacations.

A lot of the conversation is peppered with "man talk" or the subject of marriage so it can be hard to distinguish this 3rd category.

I think "I Give it a Year" passed the Bechdel test with flying colors - minus some discrepancy with conversation content.

I think there was a glitch in posting, because, like the poster says, there are many named female characters (including Nat, a main character) who talk about stuff other than men.

I've updated the rating from 1/3 to 3/3.

Wow, where to start with this pernicious piece of misogyny?

I guess it does pass the test as outlined above, although you can see that despite having a large female cast, and quite clearly being aimed at the chick market, there is really no interaction between any of the female characters that could in any way, be considered meaningful, or representative of genuine female relationships.

The basic premise is that the central couple, Nat (Rose Burn) and Josh (Rafe Spall), meet and presumably have a whirlwind romance. This is a guess and its improbability is such that it all has to happen before the film actually starts. The film opens at their wedding where Josh is shown openly deriding his bride in a particularly nasty passive aggressive way, presumably intended to masquerade as humour. In the groom’s speech, he portrays himself as the laid back artist and her as an anally retentive control freak.

Her anal retentiveness is shown when she expresses mild irritation at his inability to take out the rubbish, and ensure a supply of toilet rolls while she is out at work all day in a high powered, clearly highly paid job as an account director in a marketing firm. He meanwhile, sits at home, in a beautiful apartment, doing nothing. He directs numerous criticisms towards her, about how she can’t run properly, how she gets the words to lyrics wrong while singing unconsciously, which I think the makers believe demonstrates his wit, but actually make him look like a really horrible, emotionally abusive man.

Cue the appearance of two love interests for our leading couple. Josh is offered Chloe (Anna Farris) his ex, and the archetypal Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. A particularly offensive scene shows Josh’s best friend, the entirely unpleasant , sinister Danny, played by Stephen Merchant, sexually harassing her whilst underlying how ugly she is. Again, one can only surmise that this was considered funny by the script writer.

Nat meanwhile is offered a sensitive, sexy and very rich American. He woos her with the subtlety of a brick, but is at least nice to her, although I believe there is an underlying assumption that as he owns his own business, he will provide for her, and she will no longer need to work. This sticks in the craw, as she clearly like her job, and is excellent at it, judging by her office and the account she lands. Having said that, she and her female colleagues are portrayed as lacking any professional behaviour, and appear more concerned with boyfriends and husbands, than career success.

In fact, all the conversations between the women involve extensive bellyaching over boyfriends and husbands, to the complete exclusion of all other matters.
This might reflect the fourth form common room, but has no relationship to real life.

In short, this film represents what men think that women want from film, and by extension, from life: the only subject of any interest to a woman, is where they fit in relation to men.