Ava’s Impossible Things 2016 Movie Review

『Love of Loss and Healing Blossoming in the Space Where Dreams and Reality Intertwine』

🎥 Movie Overview

🎬 Title: Ava’s Impossible Things (2016)
🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 USA
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Fantasy / Queer
⏳ Runtime: 87 minutes
📢 Director: Marina Rice Bader

👩‍💼 Cast: Chloe Farnworth – Ava
Lauryn Nicole Hamilton – Jessa/Emma

🧩 Story Deep Dive (Spoilers)

🌫️ The Real World: Repressed Love and a Life Left Behind

The early part of the film contrasts Ava and Jessa between “life as it is” and “life that slipped away.”

Lost Past Love: Jessa was Ava’s closest friend and first love during high school. Both dreamed of leaving their hometown to chase a bigger world, but Ava’s mother Faye’s Huntington’s disease diagnosis and decline forced Ava into caregiving labor, sacrificing her dreams and her love.

Present Contrast: On the day Faye makes the shocking request to end her life, Jessa reappears. Jessa is now planning to raise a child on her own and has left their hometown to build her own life. She becomes the living symbol of the “normal life and self-determination” Ava never got to experience.

Signals of Repressed Desire: From the very beginning, Ava is shown in dreams making love to a woman who resembles Jessa. These visions reveal how strongly her love and desire—suppressed by years of caregiving—burn inside her. Jessa represents the key to Ava’s happiness, the thing she has longed for but could not have in reality.

💫 The Fantasy World: Perfect Love and the Recovery of Self

When Ava’s mind spirals after her mother’s request, she escapes into a dreamlike circus troupe world, where Jessa is reborn as Emma.

Emma: The Goddess of Salvation: Emma is a central figure in Ava’s fantasy realm—more warm, nurturing, and proactive than the real Jessa. She provides endless comfort and love, serving as Ava’s emotional safe haven that allows her to face the real pain of Faye/Claire’s looming departure.

The ‘Impossible’ Lesbian Family: In this fantasy, Ava and Emma are longtime partners and even expecting parents. This parallels the real Jessa’s choice to raise a child alone, but here Ava is part of an ideal queer family. In this imagined world, Ava is free of the burdens of illness and caregiving, fully living out her desired identity—love, family, and selfhood.

Sexual Liberation: The long, sensual love scenes with Emma are not mere romance; they reveal how Ava’s role as a caretaker has suppressed her identity as both a woman and a lesbian. Through Emma, Ava reclaims her suppressed self and desires, experiencing healing by rediscovering her vitality and capacity for joy.

🌅 The Role of the Relationship: A Tool for Psychological Healing

Ava and Jessa/Emma’s relationship acts as a crucial mechanism for Ava’s psychological recovery.

The Power to Accept Reality: Through her perfect bond with Emma, Ava regains hope in a “happy future self.” Paradoxically, this very hope enables her to confront and accept the pain of losing her mother. She learns that even after her mother’s death, her life will continue and she still deserves love and happiness.

Integration and Reconciliation: In the fantasy world, Ava reconciles with her sister Freya, and Emma stands by her side throughout. Jessa is not merely a lover but the stable, affirming force that helps Ava heal her wounds and grow.

🌈 Turning the Impossible Into Reality

The film ends with Ava leaving her fantasy behind, saying goodbye to her mother, and leaving open the possibility of rekindling her relationship with Jessa.

This reunion symbolizes more than mere escapism—it shows Ava bringing the courage and hope she gained in her dream world back into reality. For her, the true “Impossible Thing” was curing her mother’s illness. But through Jessa’s love, the film reveals the “Possible Thing”—the restoration of her own happiness—as the real salvation.

Ava and Jessa’s romance demonstrates that even within the crushing weight of illness and caregiving, love is the most powerful force for healing and courage in the face of loss.

🔍 A Dreamlike Escape Into Grief

Though some critics argue that the use of fantasy elements dilutes the emotional weight of the real-life drama, Ava’s Impossible Things remains a unique, poetic LGBTQ+ film about a woman suffocated by grief and uncertainty who discovers love and courage in a magical world of her own making.

🎯 Personal Rating

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★