In 'Am I OK?' Lesbian Self-Discovery Has Never Been So Underwhelming

In Am I OK?, Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a 32-year-old woman who realizes that maybe she is a lesbian. Lucy’s best friend, Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), has just accepted a promotion to relocate to London. Before she leaves, however, she insists on helping Lucy explore her sexuality, which mostly involves egging her on to pursue Brittany (Kiersey Clemons), the flirty masseuse who works in Lucy’s office. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear — except that the third act needed some tension — Lucy and Jane get into a huge fight and, for a few weeks, Lucy is left to navigate her love life alone, while Jane likewise has to deal with a break-up without the advice of her best friend.

That is the movie in a nutshell. Written by Lauren Pomerantz (and based on her own experiences), Am I OK? is directed by Tig Notaro and her wife, Stephanie Allynne, and while the film is well observed, it’s immensely understated. I kept waiting for something to happen to justify the movie’s existence, but it never arrived. Am I OK? feels less like a movie and more like a middle-of-the-season episode of a television series: I’d have liked to have watched the four episodes that came before it and the three episodes afterward.

To say that it is slight would be an understatement; it is too inconsequential to warrant even that. It’s not that it’s a bad movie; it’s that it is only a movie in the loosest sense. There are characters, and it runs for about 90 minutes. There’s very little drama because it’s 2024, and no one cares that Lucy is gay, not even Lucy, except to the extent that it took her so long to figure it out.

I’m sure that it will resonate with someone — the world must be full of gorgeous 32-year-old women who have never had much interest in men who are just discovering that they might be gay. I have no idea what such a person might take away from Am I OK?, except that it might be fun to have a one-night stand with a character played by Kiersey Clemons. Then again, I doubt anyone needs to watch a movie to arrive at that conclusion.

Am I OK? is currently streaming on Max. There’s little reason to watch it. Then again, there’s no real reason not to watch it. It is neither good nor bad, but it definitely exists.