Movie Marketing Madness: Imagine Me & You

There’s a whole little sub-genre of movies developing that play on the “is she or isn’t she a lesbian” question. The kick-off picture for this niche was probably Kissing Jessica Stein but since then it seems like there have been at least a few movies like this, including the recent Saving Face. They often center on a beautiful woman who, when she can’t find the right man or realizes she’s bored with the man she has, realizes that she loves the vivacious and far more interesting woman whom she’s recently met.

That appears to be the basic premise of Imagine Me & You. In this case, though, it’s Rachel’s wedding day and she’s standing at the alter when she catches the eye of a woman across the church. It could be true love but, again, it’s Rachel’s wedding day and that makes it harder, but not impossible, for the two women to explore their feelings for each other.

The Poster

Call me crazy but I really like this poster. Yeah, it’s not that exciting visually but it makes up for it by conveying the entire plot very nicely and succinctly. You see the bride and groom on the left in all their glory, except the bride (Rachel) is holding the hand of another woman behind the back of a man who that woman seems to be with. So it’s boy-girl-boy-girl, with the hand-holding going on behind the back of boy number two. Girl number two seems to be checking out Rachel as well. The tagline “There goes the bride” isn’t great but the clean, white look of the poster overcomes it and the type-point used isn’t big enough to distract from the overall feel of the poster. It’s not something I’m going to clear wallspace for but it’s a solid poster and sells the movie very well.

The Trailer

First off I’d like to state that it’s great to see Anthony Head (Giles, from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) in this. Just catupulted the movie from a “maybe” to a “definitely” in my list. Head is a great actor and it’s fantastic to see him getting work.

I’m not sure of the continuity of the scenes that make up this trailer. The plot synopsis says Rachel sees the other woman, Luce, for the first time at her wedding. However the scenes in the trailer aren’t arranged in any logical order so it’s tough to follow the relationships between Rachel, her fiancee Heck, Luce and Coop, the man who brings Luce to a dinner party and is a womanizing scoundrel. It’s made clear that Luce is gay and that Rachel is not, but that’s about it. There are shots of Rachel and Heck in their domesticity and how comfortable it is. There’s even an intonation by Rachel that Heck is her best friend. There are also clips of Rachel and Luce on one or more girls’ nights out and how their feelings develop. I would have much preferred a straight-forward trailer that allowed me to follow along and didn’t just seem to be a compilation of lines/scenes someone thought were the best thrown together in no particular order. That’s annoying.

The Website

Fox Searchlight has created a serviceable if not remarkable website for Imagine You & Me. There are only three parts to the site. The first thing you see is a Synopsis that is much the same as the recap you’ll find on Yahoo! Movies or IMDB. Not anything significant. A little better is the About the Film content. It repeats a good bit of the Synopsis, if in slightly more fleshed out form. Finally there are a series of Cast & Crew bios. Just quick run-downs of the careers of the various players.

Overall

It’s not a bad campaign, in fact it’s pretty good. The poster, as I said, I think is great and the trailer sells the movie fairly well. I want to reiterate, though, the disorienting nature of the trailer, that seems to set it up as Rachel and Luce falling in love and then Rachel gets married anyway when those things happen in the opposite order. It’s all in the editing. I think the movie’s website could have been beefed up a bit, but since it’s a niche release I guess I shouldn’t expect much. Overall nice effort from Fox Searchlight.

By Chris Thilk

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategist with over 15 years of experience in online strategy and content marketing. He lives in the Chicago suburbs.