Rarely has a movie title come as close to describing both the tone and visual style of its subject as Léa Pool's Lost and Delirious. Her chronicle of teenage lesbian love is as baroque and over-the-top as its title suggests, and, as such, will not appeal to a large part of the movie-going public. However, if you can remember the high emotion that accompanied your first teenage love-the giddiness at the start, the anguish when it inevitably died-and are willing to wallow in those emotional depths again, you'll find a lot to like in this adaptation of Susan Swan's The Wives of Bath.

Beginning with the casting of Piper Perabo (best known for her role in the execrable Coyote Ugly) and Jessica Paré (the star of Denys Arcand's Stardom) as tomboy Paulie and upper-class Victoria, respectively, two vibrant students at Perkins Girl's College, a posh private school. These two beautiful young women, both of them strong and in their prime, give fearless performances, embracing the sometimes-florid script by Judith Thompson and making it their own.

The film begins with the arrival of "Mouse" (Mischa Barton, The Five Senses), a quiet new girl at the school who finds herself sharing quarters with Paulie and Victoria. Paulie is the type who likes to spike the punch with gin while Victoria is the more in control of the two. Their perpetual happiness is soon revealed to be a product of the mad love they feel for each other. Mouse, being the non-judgmental sort, barely bats an eye when she witnesses them making love, befriends them both and serves as witness to the grand tragedy about to take place.

When Victoria's little sister bursts in on Victoria and Paulie whilst the latter two are in bed together, naked, things change radically. Terrified that the rumours of her lesbian behaviour will eventually get back to her parents, Victoria abandons Paulie, something Paulie refuses to accept. She sets about trying to win her back, spouting Shakespeare along the way. "Should I abide in this dull world, which in her absence is no better than a sty?" quotes Paulie, before going on to Lady Macbeth's famous "Unsex me here and take my milk for gall..." speech. As I said, the movie does go over the top, but there is a strange and beautiful fierceness to Perabo's performance that keeps one riveted as her grief mounts.

To be sure director Pool (Set Me Free) is guilty of excess after excess, not least by giving us an ending that may be a logical extension of Paulie's growing sense of rage and helplessness, but that comes across as just too much. And I'm sure that a lot of people will quibble with the amount of nudity Perabo and Paré are required to exhibit-if a man had made the film, in some quarters he would probably have the tag "dirty, old" applied before his name for the rest of his life. But, quibbles aside, there is something gloriously romantic and ineffably affecting about seeing this kind of grand love put up on the screen with such high emotion and visual panache.