[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Lost_and_Delirious_5672.jpg]]

''Lost and Delirious'' is a film about a young, naïve heterosexual girl named Mary or "Mouse" (Creator/MischaBarton) who moves in to boarding school with a couple of lesbians who are involved in an intimate relationship. The story follows Mouse's attempts to understand their relationship and adult sexuality and also follows the struggles Paulie (Creator/PiperPerabo) and Tori (Creator/JessicaPare) have as a lesbian couple at an all-girls private school. When Tori's little sister catches them together, Tori throws herself into a relationship with a guy and Paulie desperately tries to win her back.

Based (with some serious adaptations) on Canadian author Susan Swan's novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wives_of_Bath ''The Wives of Bath'']].

----
!!Tropes:

* AbledInTheAdaptation: In "The Wives of Bath", Mary has a hump in her left shoulder as a result of a childhood bout of polio, which developed into kyphosis. Creator/MischaBarton interpretation of Mary utterly lacks such as thing.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Paulie in the film has her inner demons and dangerous emotional struggles which is the end [[spoiler: exacerbates her decision to [[DrivenToSuicide take her own life]]]], but she's a ''lot'' friendlier and a ''lot'' less emotionally volatile and dangerous that in the book. The majority of her most insidious, dangerous and utterly unnerving elements are completely AdaptedOut, which makes her come as much more tragic as a result.
* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: Paulie's [[spoiler: change in dress]] is a clear parallel to her counterpart's [[spoiler: other identity as Lewis]] in "The Wives of Bath", as are many of her other actions and their results.
* AllMenArePerverts: Heavily implied with Jake and his friend.
* BlatantLies: Paulie's stated reason for why she and Tori tend to end up naked in Tori's bed is that Tori has awful nightmares and that she's trying to comfort her. The first time she used this excuse, the person she's telling it to (Mary) already knows what's going on, and the second time the people she tells it to (Tori's sister and her friends) don't believe her.
* BoardingSchool: Mouse, Tori, and Paulie attend one. In the book, it was more of a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors, but the film version is fairly ordinary.
* BrainBleach: The reaction of Tori's sister when she catches Paulie and Tori in bed together. Tori's family is very conservative and prudish, finding homosexuality abominable.
* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler: Paulie kills herself at the end over Tori leaving her.]]
* ButchLesbian: Paulie (though she claims not to be a lesbian, just into [[SingleTargetSexuality Tori specifically]]), would be a {{downplayed}} example, something of a [[TheLadette ladette]] by her appearance and behavior.
* CulturedBadass: Paulie is an expert fencer with a trained falcon and a tendency to quote Shakespeare.
* CurbStompBattle: Paulie challenges Jake to a sword duel over Tori. Given that she's a fencing prodigy and he's only ever handled a sword during theatrical productions, the fight is extremely one-sided.
* DisappearedDad: Mary's dad is around, but they're emotionally estranged after her mother's death. He apparently remarried soon after, with Mary disliking her stepmother (likely due to how fast this happened) and being sent off to a boarding school by him. When he later doesn't show up for a father-daughter dance at the school, it clearly hurts Mary.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Tori has broken up with Paulie as she's afraid of her homophobic family rejecting her. She's with a guy, likely pretending to be straight. Paulie is devastated by this and eventually kills herself.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Paulie kills herself at the end of the movie in sorrow over Tori leaving her.]]
%%* TheFilmOfTheBook: See above.
* {{Gayngst}}: Tori realizes and admits twice (to Mary and Paulie herself) that her love for Paulie is something she's not likely to ever experience again. However, she cannot bear to face rejection from her parents and her peers, and so she pretends/forces herself to be straight in order to avoid the rejection.
* GayngstInducedSuicide: Paulie kills herself when her beloved Tori breaks up with her due to fear of her family disowning her, and dates a guy (probably trying to pass for straight). She insists they're not lesbians, just [[SingleTargetSexuality into each other specifically]], but the effect is the same.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: Paulie claims that she and Tori are not lesbians but are simply in love with each other.
* InnocentBystander: Tori.
* {{Jerkass}}: Tori's sister and father on-screen, and her mother offscreen. Mary's stepmother is no prize either.
* LighterAndSofter: Paulie is ''just'' a PsychoLesbian in the movie. In the book, however, she's [[CreepyCrossdresser far worse]].
* LipstickLesbian: Tori, who acts and dresses femininely while being in a relationship with another girl.
* LoveTriangle: Paulie/Tori/Jake.
* MasculineFeminineGayCouple: [[TheLadette Paulie]] and [[LipstickLesbian Tori]], respectively.
* MissingMom:
** Mary's mother died from cancer just a couple years before the film began, and she's clearly still in mourning. When relating what happened to Tori and Paulie, all three grow tearful. They give her the nickname "Mary Brave" as a result. She also reminisces about her mother to Joe, the gardener, helping him because her mother and Mary gardened together.
** Paulie's birth mother, meanwhile, gave her up for adoption and she really wants to reunite (not liking her foster parents at all). Unfortunately, her birth mother doesn't want this, which clearly devastates Paulie (although she pretends otherwise) and likely does no favors to [[DrivenToSuicide her mental state]] as Tori had just broken up with her then too.
* NiceGirl: Mary, who at times is Paulie's only friend and the SecretKeeper to both her and Tori, and who obviously cares deeply for both of them. Another of Tori's friends, upon hearing the rumor about Paulie and Tori, makes a pretty obvious hint to Tori that if Tori were gay it would be fine with her, which Tori unfortunately ignores.
* NoBisexuals: Hard to tell. It is never explicitly stated whether or not Tori enjoys her relationship with Jake, rather than simply trying to pretend she's straight.
* OneGenderSchool: The school they all attend.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Tori's first name is really Victoria, but she's rarely called that. Pauline meanwhile is always just called Paulie.
* PragmaticAdaptation: Several peripheral characters from the book (and Paulie being a [[spoiler: murderer]]) were removed, for example.
* PsychoLesbian: Mary learns that her boarding school roommates are in love. One girl's family pitches a fit, and she goes to sleep with the first guy she sees, and the other girl goes completely insane, chasing eagles in the woods and [[spoiler: she commits suicide at the end. It's even worse because the older teacher tries to save her by sharing her own forbidden love.]]\\\
Paulie's much less palatable in the book: she not only [[spoiler:dresses up as a guy, but deceives the entire school population into thinking she has a brother]], but she worships King Kong and she strings (the much ''less'' naive) Mouse along much further. Her own sexuality is never mentioned, although there's a brief scene with Tori, who professes a crush on "Lewis". The older teacher is still in a forbidden romance (here explicitly stated when Paulie and Mouse find letters from the teachers), but this is better justified by some deliberate ValuesDissonance (the book's set in the 60's).
* QueerRomance: Paulie and Tori, two girls at a boarding school, have to keep their sexual relationship hidden from everyone but their roommate Mary.
* SecretRelationship: What Paulie and Tori have in the beginning.
* [[ShoutOut/ToShakespeare Shout-Out: To Shakespeare]]: Paulie ''loves'' quoting Shakespeare, specifically Theatre/TwelfthNight (the "willow cabin" speech she delivers to Tori in the library), Theatre/{{Macbeth}} (the speech from Lady Macbeth about her milk turning to gall), and Theatre/AntonyAndCleopatra (the speech about what love is).
* SingleTargetSexuality:
--> '''Paulie:''' You think I'm a LESBIAN?
--> '''Mouse:''' You're a girl in love with a girl, aren't you?
--> '''Paulie:''' No! I'm PAULIE in love with TORI. Remember? And Tori, she is, she IS in love with me because she is mine and I am hers and neither of us are LESBIANS!
* StalkerWithACrush: Paulie arguably becomes one of these, obsessing over Tori and crawling on top of her in bed while she's asleep.
* StarCrossedLovers: [[spoiler: Paulie and Tori.]]
* SupportingProtagonist: Mary is the first character introduced in the film and the narrator. The movie is seen from her point-of-view but she has little impact on the plot, and the story is all about lesbians Paulie and Tori.
* {{Swordfight}}: Paulie is a fencing expert and challenges Tori's boyfriend to a duel for her hand.
* UnknownRival: Jake has no idea why Paulie hates him. It's because they're into the same girl.
* WallBangHer: Tori has sex with Jake against a tree (that can't feel very good, but then again she's probably only doing it to pass for straight).
----