adding more characters such as the tomboy's family and her love interest. Later, she realized this character was based on her first girlfriend. Maggenti's script, which originated as "a very dark story of teenage sexuality and [teenagers'] relationship to adults", grew until Maggenti briefly abandoned it in 1994. However, the film's future associate producer, Melissa Painter, convinced Maggenti to shop the story around as an independent film. Two producers wanted a pivotal element of the two love interests being from very different paths, so Maggenti added a scene that established the beginning of the girls' relationship. The producers were delighted with this, so Maggenti wrote a new script which she finished in eight days. She found she had surprised herself in that her script was now a comedic farce; the story wasn't about gay love or coming out, but about first love between teenagers. Shooting was completed in 21 days during the summer of 1994. Scenes taking place at Randy and Evie's high school were filmed in divisions of Horace Mann School, in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. Of the film's ending being likened by audiences to a Hollywood romantic comedy, Maggenti said, "A lot of people have mentioned to me that the shot looks like a marriage portrait… That final shot is actually a very ambivalent shot, leaving them at the threshold of adulthood, a relationship, their families, everything." Release The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love debuted at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 1995 to good reviews. It was then given a limited theatrical release in the United States on June 16, 1995. It was also theatrically released in Australia on March 28, 1996, and in the UK on September 10, 1996. Critical reception On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 78% from 18 reviews. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and said it is "warm-hearted, funny, and involving" and "the two leads are well-cast." Ebert lambasted the MPAA for giving the film an R rating for a love scene between two young women, arguing "a [similar love scene] between a boy and a girl wouldn't have qualified for the word 'strong'; the MPAA is shocked by the homosexuality. The R rating is ironic when you reflect how much healthier and more thoughtful this film is than so much mindless, action-oriented 'family