Your take on the Bechdel test is very perceptive (and important).

The test shouldn’t be just another item in a screenwriter’s checklist. Nor is a writer’s job done when a script has two female characters talking about whether a pour over or a French press makes better coffee.

Failing the Bechdel is the significant measure of a script; otherwise, the test is a bare minimum. More storylines should have complex, formula-defying female characters like those you describe in your review of Byzantium. And the change will happen faster if more reviewers and writers keep arguing for one of the most essential standards of enthralling storytelling.