Lola 2001 Movie Review

『A Woman’s Inner Journey Toward Selfhood Beyond Oppression』

🎥 Film Overview

🎬 Title: Lola
🌍 Country: 🇨🇦 Canada
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Independent Film
🗓️ Year of Production: 2001
📢 Director: Carl Bessai

👩‍💼 Cast: Lola – Sabrina Grdevich
Sandra – Joanna Going

🧩 Deep Story Exploration (Spoilers)

🔒 Identity Theft and Inner Emptiness

Lola is a psychological drama about a seemingly ordinary woman whose deeply unstable inner world leads her to escape into another person’s life after a chance encounter.

Director Carl Bessai focuses on the protagonist’s psychological anxiety through a cinematic style that mirrors her unstable mind. The urban landscape of Vancouver and Lola’s daily routine are filmed with abrupt editing rhythms (such as sped-up images of Vancouver traffic), visually expressing her restlessness and scattered mental state.

✨ A Chance Encounter and Intense Attraction

Lola feels trapped in a suffocating marriage to her verbally abusive husband Mike and in a mundane life that dismisses her creativity. She is unable to answer the question of “who she is and what she wants.”

One day, she meets a street sex worker named Sandra by chance.

• Lola’s sense of lack: She lives an aimless life, filled with a void of self-recognition stemming from the absence of validation and purpose.

• Sandra’s allure: Though living on the edge, Sandra appears self-assured and unapologetically authentic. Her confidence and defiance exert a strong attraction on Lola, who feels paralyzed by fear and uncertainty.

Lola’s fascination with Sandra stems not from mere curiosity but from a longing for the firm, independent self-image she lacks within herself.

🪞 Projection and Mimicry

Their relationship develops less as a romantic or friendly bond and more as a form of psychological projection.

Role	Lola (the one who projects)	Sandra (the object of projection)
To Lola, Sandra represents...	The image of a free, strong self she longs to become	A substitute identity to fill her emptiness
Outcome of their relationship	Uses Sandra’s life as a refuge from her reality	Has her identity stolen (not by mutual consent)

After the two spend the night together and Sandra is threatened by loan sharks, Lola decides to steal Sandra’s identity and flee to Toronto.

1. Escape through identity exchange: In order to break free from her violent husband and monotonous life, Lola takes on Sandra’s persona — even donning her blonde wig — to experience a “different life.” This motif, reminiscent of Bergman’s Persona, reflects an attempt at self-dissolution and reconstruction.

• A search for solitude: Lola’s decision to visit Sandra’s mother under Sandra’s identity grants her a temporary escape — a time of anonymous freedom that allows her to distance herself from her own problems and momentarily restore internal order.

🌹 Journey Toward Home and Motherhood

Lola’s journey to Sandra’s hometown while impersonating her marks the emotional and thematic peak of the film.

• Substituting maternal loss: Lola carries a deep void caused by the absence of her parents. Her decision to visit Sandra’s mother serves as a way to vicariously experience the maternal connection she never had. The interaction with Sandra’s mother brings Lola a form of emotional healing.

• Return to a symbolic home: Sandra’s hometown becomes for Lola a space of anonymity and safety — a stage where she can temporarily live as a “different Lola,” disconnected from her past.

🌄 A Moment of Rest

After meeting Sandra’s mother, the tension gradually dissipates, and the film closes in a quiet, reflective mood. The story ends not with a reunion but with Lola finding momentary peace through her borrowed life and realizing the depth of her own emptiness.

• The relationship between Lola and Sandra is less about true friendship and more about mirroring the self through the other.
• By wearing Sandra’s persona (mask), Lola momentarily escapes her unstable daily life and experiences the independence and freedom she yearned for — gaining a sense of inner growth and self-awareness.

Ultimately, the bond between Lola and Sandra represents a psychological attempt to fill one’s emptiness through another’s identity. It captures the fragile emotional landscape of early-2000s independent cinema — portraying the anxiety of young adulthood and the search for authenticity.

💫 Portrait of a Forgotten Indie Film

Lola was not a commercial success and is often regarded as a “forgotten festival relic.” Yet, through Sabrina Grdevich’s nuanced performance, the film compellingly portrays a woman trapped in self-loathing and existential anxiety.

This work explores the modern individual’s attempt to reclaim identity by imitating another’s life. Unlike the kinetic urgency of Run Lola Run, this film’s “run” is internal — an emotional sprint through the fragmented self, standing as a quietly profound piece within early-2000s independent cinema.

🎯 Personal Rating

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