Plainclothes

The LGBTQ+ community has made remarkable strides in terms of acceptance over the past five decades, a far cry from the conditions that were in place years ago. However, despite this progress, community members from various personal backgrounds and those working in certain professions have struggled with their comfort levels when it comes to being open about themselves. They have been unable or unwilling to step forward to profess their true natures to a world that has steadily become more understanding (even if there’s still work to be done in this area, as has become painfully apparent of late). Such are the conditions faced by Lucas (Tom Blyth), an undercover cop assigned to arrest (some would say entrap) gay men who cruise public spaces (particularly restrooms) looking for sex partners, ultimately nailing them on counts of indecent exposure. There’s one problem with that, though: Lucas wrestles with his own attraction to men, a leaning that has made doing his job more personally challenging. He also struggles to cope with the pressures of remaining closeted in his less-than-accepting family, particularly his hypercritical, homophobic uncle (Gabe Fazio). The ante gets upped on all of this when, on the job, Lucas encounters a middle-aged man, Andrew (Russell Tovey), to whom he’s highly attracted. Andrew is something of a mystery man himself, giving off vague vibes about himself that keep Lucas at bay, despite the charged sexual energy between them, as well as the officer’s growing amorous feelings for the enigmatic stranger. The duo is ostensibly trapped at arm’s length in their own choices, but they must nevertheless contend with how to handle the undeniable attraction between them in the wake of personal and professional impediments that they’ve allowed to get in the way – and that, thanks to several ironic plot twists, end up complicating their respective lives even further. Despite the film’s seemingly plausible premise, however, the execution of this story leaves something to be desired, a problem attributable to a narrative and screenplay that could definitely use some work. For starters, the picture is set in the late 1990s, yet the paranoia level among the two leads comes across more like something out of the 1950s. Granted, circumstances in the LGBTQ+ community weren’t as conciliatory then as they are today, but, as a general rule, they weren’t as overwhelmingly confining as they’re depicted here. Then there are plot elements that simply don’t mesh as well as they might have. When the film’s big reveals surface, for instance, they’re often treated almost flippantly, as if they were being employed as insensitive comic relief instead of as dramatic turning points more in line with the overarching tone of the remainder of the story. And then there’s the release’s uneven pacing, marked by a dreadfully dull opening act that, thankfully, is somewhat made up for into the film’s admittedly better-handled second half. But, despite the steady improvement as the film progresses, there’s still plenty of material here that could stand some much-needed shoring up. As one of the year’s most anticipated LGBTQ+ releases, writer-director Carmen Emmi’s debut feature unfortunately comes across as a sizable disappointment, one that could have used a few more script revisions before being committed to film. When a director seeks to make a picture with a profound statement, it’s imperative that the material backs it up with a solid, factually grounded foundation befitting such an insightful observation and does so with eloquent, suitably fitting writing, both of which, sadly, come up lacking in this well-intentioned but ultimately flawed offering.

Following the murder of two young girls who refused to give their killer oral sex, the authorities decide that this is a reasonable excuse to clamp down on cottaging in the gents toilets of a mall. That’s where officer “Lucas” (Tom Blyth) is put to work. He’s the handsome lure to attract gentlemen into unzipping when they probably wished they hadn’t, before they are led away in handcuffs for prosecution. Then one shift, he encounters the slightly less obvious “Andrew” (Russell Tovey) who doesn’t fall for the trap, and who slightly enthrals the young man. Indeed as the story goes on we realise that “Lucas” has a secret of his own and that what he wants from “Andrew” might fly in the face of his professional obligations. Of course, in his way “Andrew” is no different from “Lucas”. A man living a life under wraps, with his own secrets to keep - so what chance anything might come of anything? I thought Blyth held this together well as he juggled his professional, family and “private” lives together, especially as the latter element sees him become ever so slightly obsessive. The denouement is messy, but it does tie the threads together after a fashion and along the way auteur Carmen Emmi shines a light on what would appear to be an entirely disproportionate use of almost gleefully applied police resources provided based on quite a ridiculous underlying premise. Tovey’s role is maybe a little undercooked and does come across as borderline cruel at times, but the sum of the parts is a well presented critique on near-contemporaneously set homophobia, fear and forbidden love - and it is well worth a watch.

The opening of this film, of a young man cruising in a mall, quickly establishes the setting and decade and set me on edge whether or not I thought this film was going to "do something." The movie is shot on film and in a 4:3 ratio, interspersed with footage recorded on other kinds of film and cameras—the effect is disorienting. From the start, there is a sense of surveillance, communicated through both the main character's eyes—searching for marks, looking in mirrors, matching gazes—and that interspersed footage which *feels* like a recording in a way the "normal" footage of the film doesn't. This looking (between characters and the audience at other clips) quickly is shown to also be a fear of surveillance for the main character. The film is kind of a coming out film, so this surveilling and fear of surveillance has much to do with the main character both being found out and finding himself out. The intimacy in the scenes between Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey is pretty remarkable. There is an education in cruising here and a clear-sighted understanding of masculine intimacy in the 90s—in no way particularly *queer*, but just other. The relationship between the characters is marked by age as well. I wonder how this film would be received by a younger audience, but then again, I think the claims of the prudishness of the young 20-somethings is overblown on the internet. That thought, too, reminds me of the interspersed footage, mixes of memory and desire; the valences of the internet revealing and masking, in turn, desires—desiring and detesting something with culture over and through time. (But what culture on the internet?) Later in the film—which has been quiet throughout, very focused on silence and dialogue (and the dialogue is picked up wonderfully; there's a sense of distance as audience from the characters on the screen...perhaps it's a technical error, but it is nonetheless effective in the film)—there is a single song that creates a kind of music video moment, paired with the main character having a breakdown about potentially being outed. I don't think I have much to say about this, but it does push the film further into the the strange or estranged fantasy space created by the interspersed cuts of other footage. Certainly not a romanticization of life or memory.