Losing Ground (1982) poster
1982 · drama

Losing Ground

Directed by Kathleen Collins1h 26m1982
ElsewhereIMDb6.6916RT96%TMDB6.222
  • measured
  • intimate
Movie DNA

Neutral, measured, measured drama, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Sara, a cold college professor, and her husband, an ecstatic painter, spend a summer away from the city, straining their rocky relationship.

Our read · Losing Ground (1982) reads as a neutral, measured, grounded drama entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Losing Ground

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want an intelligent 80s indie about a Black woman professor seeking ecstatic experience.

ends warmit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 15attention 4/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if you need plot-heavy or commercial pacing over witty intellectual drama.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself