By Steve Erickson

Femme proves that finessing the depiction of a toxic romance can lead to some ugly places.

Femme, directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping. Screening at AMC Boston Common 19 and AMC Loews Liberty Tree Mall 20.

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in Femme. Photo: Agile Films

Femme tries something very difficult: showing how a queer Black man’s attempt to rebel ends up binding him more closely to his oppressors. Adding to the challenge: the filmmakers undertaking the quest are unfashionably bored by “good representation” and fond of masochistic desire. Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) performs at a London nightclub as the drag queen Aphrodite Banks. When he leaves one night to purchase cigarettes at a deli, several homophobic young men harass and then assault him. The violent encounter sends him into a period of deep depression. Traumatized, he’s barely capable of leaving his apartment. But then he spots Preston (George Mackay) at a sauna. Jules recognizes Preston as one of his gay-bashers, but Preston does not recognize Jules out of drag. The two hook up, rapidly settling into a pattern of rough anal sex with Jules as the bottom. There’s a master plan behind this hook-up: Jules will humiliate Preston by filming their sex on his phone and then posting it to a porn site. James Rhodes’ cinematography, etched in shades of blue and black so deep the actors recede into the background, reflects the cringey darkness of this strategy — it barely lets in a flicker of light.

Stewart-Jarrett’s Jules never relaxes for a moment, never finds any peace. (The symbolism of Jules playing Chun-li in the video game Street Fighter — where he attacks a huge, heavily muscled white man — is glaring.) Outside of his nightlife, Jules is isolated; he only interacts with his roommates and Preston. His drag alter ego allows Jules to take on the persona of the “bad bitch ” (in another performer’s words), a role embodied by many Black female musicians. Jules says that he feels more powerful in drag, where he can take on the larger-than-life glamour and boastful libido of rapper Shygirl, whose song he lip-syncs. (Preston is attracted because he finds dominating a Black man sexy.) At the club, Jules is rewarded for leaning towards his femme side. But the glow up he experiences onstage is inevitably temporary, especially since he is pressed to code-switch through ordinary life because he needs to figure out how he can fight back against Preston.

Femme takes its time figuring out where it’s going. Critics have described it as a revenge fantasy, but that’s not quite true. Although there seems to be little emotion between Jules and Preston, their connection is strong — they are almost inseparable. Initially, Preston tells him “you want to get fucked in the ass by a thug,” and that appears to sum up their relationship dynamic. Jules tries to lie to Preston’s roommates when he turns up to their apartment for hook-ups, claiming that he’s there to buy drugs. When they press him on his claim that he and Preston were cellmates, Jules takes an awkward amount of time before mumbling that he went to jail for theft. They don’t believe him. They know something else is going on.

George McKay and Nathan-Stewart-Jarrett in Femme. Photo: Agile Films

The major problem with Femme is that what is going on relies on tired, sensationalized tropes. (The title positions Jules as the femme fatale of an erotic thriller.) The film’s departure from the dogma of “wholesome,” upbeat queer images is refreshing, but the script ends up rehashing  stereotypes from the ’80s and ’90s rather than striking out in fresh directions. How many films and TV shows have we seen about self-hating closet cases who become violent towards other queer men? (Of course, this concept winds up letting heterosexuals off the hook for their homophobia.) Critic Angelica Jade Bastien argued that “this movie cares more about the Nazi-coded homophobic violent monster turned romantic interest than its vulnerable gay lead.” She has a point. Although Mackay believably transforms himself into a hardened, tattooed ex-con, his character never rises above cliché, never more so than when he shows tentative signs of opening up emotionally to another man. At the cost of being indifferent to Jules’ inner life, Femme toys with the question of whether a man like Preston has the potential for redemption.

As a means of probing its protagonist’s psychological pain, Femme spotlights violence. It is shot and edited so that we feel every blow. More troubling, the film’s undercurrent of prickly, barely suppressed hatred runs through every one of its scenes. That is unfortunate, because Femme introduces some interesting ideas that it doesn’t take the time to fully flesh out, especially gay porn’s fetishization of straight men. (This seems to contribute to Jules’s desire to submit to Preston — even if he’s holding the camera.) Femme‘s conclusion seems to suggest that the oppressed and their oppressors are tied together in mutual gratification. The brutal finale straddles a disturbing line: it presents us with a character who is punished by the world and revels in his victimization. Up to that point, the film was ambivalent enough to be genuinely provocative. But finessing the depiction of a toxic romance can lead to some ugly places. Femme proves incapable of thinking outside of the genre box.

Steve Erickson writes about film and music for Gay City News, Slant Magazine, the Nashville Scene, Trouser Press, and other outlets. He also produces electronic music under the tag callinamagician. His latest album, Bells and Whistles, was released in January 2024, and is available to stream here.