Revenge, the old adage runs, is a dish best served cold and it's something we've seen over and over on film. So praise be for Femme, a deliciously queer take on the genre that delivers retribution sizzlingly hot.
Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, superbly vulnerable) is blossoming into living his best gay life. Fabulous in killer heels and a shockingly tiny, shocking-pink mini-skirt, he’s just slayed it on stage as his cabaret alter ego, Aphrodite.
But London being London, and the best queer clubs often being in a rough part of town, Jules’ late-night stroll to a corner shop to buy cigarettes ends in a brutal homophobic attack.
Previously flying his pride flag in a blaze of cross-dressing glory, Jules is crushed, battered both outside and in. He shrinks into himself, hanging out joylessly alone in gay saunas where… one day he spots the man who kicked the shit out of him. I know, I know, what a convenient coincidence, how bloody likely is that!
However, it does set up a crackingly jittery collision of opposites, as Jules pounces on this twist of fate without any real clue where it will take him.
Where it goes is into the testosterone-bro world of drug dealer Preston, excellently played by George MacKay as the bulldog-faced “big man” who’s always just a wrong glance away from meting out a dose of serious violence.
The impending vengeance that Jules may or may not enact is cleverly played out as a tense will-he-won’t-he nerve-tingler. But for me, the real juice is to be found in where Preston’s closeted homosexuality takes him.
To give away more would ruin a beautiful and painfully liberating climax. According to debut directors Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, they had bonded over watching Safdie brothers’ thrillers together (these acclaimed films include Uncut Gems and Good Times), and decided to make this because there wasn’t anything similar featuring gay characters.
But this doesn’t come across as a Safdie clone, far from it. Rather, Femme is something altogether deeper and more satisfying.
99 mins, cert 18
