With his performances as Aphrodite Banks, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Candyman) has a place among London’s celebrated drag artists. One night after a show, he steps out to get some cigarettes and is brutally attacked by a man (George MacKay, 1917), out with a gang of his friends. Although Jules is able to recover physically, he withdraws from the outside world, traumatized. Months later, he recognizes his attacker by chance in a gay sauna. Without make-up and wrapped only in a towel, Jules is able to approach the other man incognito and find out who he is. He begins an affair with the closeted Preston, with a plan to take his revenge.
REVIEW:
Femme, a white-knuckle thriller directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping loves to scramble its plot. Here, the victim uses his sexuality to break down and take revenge on his attacker. Unfortunately, he falls for the guy. The munchausen via proxy the victim develops enables Femne to explore the role of gender in all its kinky connections and dynamics, particularly dominance and submission in an overtly sadomasichistic relationship.
By night, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a headlining drag performer at a queer nightclub in East London. In the beginning of the film, a few blocks from this sanctuary, he’s brutalized by a thuggish homophobe with neck tattoos. Months later, Jules heads to a gay sauna where he finds his aggressor, Preston (George MacKay), lurking in a corner. Preston doesn’t know that Jules is the same man he beat up, and the two begin regularly hooking up. Jules is weirdly turned on by Preston’s bullish machismo, though he plans to gain the other man’s trust long enough to shoot a sex tape. Outing the intensely closeted Preston is Jules’s intended form of revenge.
Jules’s terrible secret and Preston’s short fuse give the film its underlying current of menace and tension. The jittery, intimate camerawork is always homing in on the men’s wary, jaw-clenched faces, their bodies seemingly always on the verge of violence. Preston’s toxic-bro roommates always seem to be hovering when the men plan their trysts, so Jules has plenty of opportunities to blow Preston’s cover. Yet Jules goes through the bulk of the film in a hoodie and slacks (his straight-guy costume), per Preston’s request.
There’s an interesting but unconvincing twist that occurs towards the end. It’s intended to humanize Preston’s character but just comes off as shock for shock’s sake. It’s an unfortunate shift in focus that robs the film of the audience’s need to see justice served. The criminal doesn’t need to be humanized at the expense of the black man’s victory over his white oppressor and abuser. This complicated ending tries to avoid a cut and dried triumph. It might be more deep, and maybe more meaningful, but sometimes it’s better to leave the villain looking small and pathetic, not worth the bother of kicking around,
Femme gets a 3.0/5 or a B. It’s streaming on Hulu.
CREDITS:
Directed by
- Sam H. Freeman
- Ng Choon Ping
Screenplay by
- Sam H. Freeman
- Ng Choon Ping
Based on
- Sam H. Freeman
- Ng Choon Ping
Produced by
- Myles Payne
- Sam Ritzenberg
Starring
Cinematography
James Rhodes
Edited by
Selina Macarthur
Music by
Adam Janota Bzowski
Production
companies
- Agile Films
- Anton
- BBC Film
Distributed by
Release dates
- 19 February 2023(Berlinale)
- 1 December 2023(United Kingdom)
Running time
99 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
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