TIFF '23: Queer Way of Life
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 4:30PM 
The 48th Annual Toronto Film Festival may have ended already, but my coverage here at The Film Experience is still going for a few more days. This time, let's talk about the program's queer offerings, highlighting three projects that range from an award-winning World Premiere to a beloved Spanish auteur's first foray into the Western genre. They are the dragged-up double feature of Sophie Dupuis' Solo, which took the Best Canadian Feature prize, and Unicorns, directed by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd. Finally, there's Pedro Almodóvar's Strange Way of Life, bound to hit American theaters on October 4th, released by Sony Pictures Classics…
SOLO, Sophie Dupuis
Set in the Montreal drag scene, Solo considers the splintering quotidian of Simon, a prodigious makeup artist who spends his nights at the club, dazzling audiences with old-school lip-syncs. As the camera enters the protagonist's world, it's met with a sense of thriving community, all glitter and generosity across generations, Simon's sister cum seamstress his biggest supporter. But the idyll is short-lasting when two disruptions come to be. First, the arrival of Olivier, a fellow drag artist from France, stops Simon in his tracks like a fly caught in some beautiful spider's web. Second, the young man's estranged mother is back in town after a 15-year absence, distant as ever.
Though somewhat unrelated, these two threads weave a tapestry of complicated emotions around Simon, prompting an unraveling that initially seems like a surge of nascent joy. With Olivier, he lives a whirlwind romance, so drunk on the ecstasy of new love that the film itself seems swept off its feet. It's an all-consuming affair, leading to isolation and the mingling of one's art with one's heart, Simon's drag bending out of shape to please the new queen of his days. A similar dynamic insinuates itself into the drama as a son tries desperately to impress his opera diva mother, even if she's done nothing to deserve such devotion.
Like echoes of each other, the two unhealthy bonds may feel redundant as dramatic devices, but they feel honest in the ways life so often works without narrative tidiness. Authenticity shines through, with Simon's plight a treasure trove of relatability, specificity birthing queer universality. This is true of his sexual to romantic to creative partnership with Olivier and his filial obsession with gaining approval. A sense prevails that Simon is being eaten alive by stronger personalities, trying to fit in with another person's idea of who he should be to the point he forgets who he is. Painful but truthful, Solo emerges as a keen character study.
It's also a celebration of drag, positively intoxicated on the artform's glamourous appeal, perchance exaggerating its cinematic qualities to better sell the spectacle. Indeed, every time Simon takes the stage, it's like an electrical current runs wild through the screen, blasting new life into the procedures even when the result is a catastrophic failure. Yet, our protagonist isn't the only one to shine. Different queen characters are allowed their individual style and personal take on the scene, contrasting with each other to suggest a rich cosmos that exists far beyond the narrative's constrictive margins.
None of this would work without committed performances, and Solo has that aplenty. In the lead, Théodore Pellerin, who audiences might recognize from Never Rarely Sometimes Always, delivers a staggering turn, delineating the parameters of disaster even when letting himself fall into euphoria. He also telegraphs how liberating drag can be, acing a brilliant and brilliantly filmed last scene to show catharsis with a painted mug - the filmmaker's love for drag is Solo's beating heart, even if the cast lacks actual drag performers. Anne-Marie Cadieux is all maternal chill, while Félix Maritaud provides Olivier with his thorny charisma, a powerful force that's forever hungry, careless for those he devours and spits out, half-chewed.
UNICORNS, Sally El Hosaini & James Krishna Floyd
When dealing with filmic portrayals of marginalized identities, it's easy to fall into the trap of demanding perfect representation, neatly cataloged and labeled, all contradictions of real life resolved for the screen. The approach has its merits, but it also curtails dramatic possibilities, especially in the realm of queer storytelling. Not everyone has everything figured out, and people stuck in discovering themselves shouldn't be kept from the screen, not even when their arcs finish unresolved, questions unanswered as the end credits roll. Such is the case of Unicorns, where the audience is invited to join two individuals on their journey, destination out of sight.
The film starts far away from what one would consider to be queer desire, looking on as Luke, a 26-year-old single dad, enjoys another transactional tryst with an unknown woman, no strings attached. Between his mechanic job and caring for his little boy, there's little time for something more serious. Or, perchance, there's a lack of interest, commitment abhorred. It all changes one night, when he finds himself stranded at a nightclub, initially unaware its clientele is primarily queer South Asians. In the comfortable darkness of nightlife, his eyes catch Aysha, a beautiful woman performing for the crowd, glamorous and seductive. She's irresistible, and the pair soon ends up outside, kissing passionately.
Only, Luke thinks she's a cis woman and promptly freaks out once he finds out she isn't. But what is the truth of Aysha's identity? Beyond the drag persona, he's Ashiq, presenting as a femme gay man who sometimes cross-dresses offstage. Still, bits of dialogue and general behavior suggest that the line separating Aysha from Ashiq is porous, verging on immaterial, gender identity fluid, or perchance spinning its wheels before a trans epiphany we never get to see. The same goes for Luke, who's chased down by the drag queen and ends up forging an unlikely friendship, working as her driver by night. They eventually become lovers, the parameters of attachment undefined.
With Luke, we may be watching an assumed straight man discovering his desires may go beyond heteronormativity. But it can also be a romantic narrative about learning to love a trans woman, his attraction predicated on Aysha's femininity. It's all tricky and unclear, but that makes it feel closer to the messiness of actual sexuality and gender identity than many a progressive-minded movie. The protagonists are dealing with their own confusion throughout, winding through the swiveling path of self-knowledge, tripping along the way. For the drag queen, there's a further element of culture clash contained within the pressures of a traditional immigrant family.
El Hosaini and Krishna Floyd do much to capture the ecstasy of nightlife, new intimacies uncovered in shared reticence, and the tensions that tie their characters in knots. However, Unicorns is an actor movie, through and through, its success dependent on the abilities of Ben Hardy and Jason Patel in the leads. Thankfully, both young thespians are exemplar. As Luke, Hardy does a lot with little, externalizing an interior self-questioning without erring on the side of too much demonstration. Like his film, he's got a tender touch and a beguiling presence, surprisingly gentle in his lovelorn blues.
On the other hand, Patel must contend with Aysha/Ashiq's many contradictions, letting them remain open while forcing some choices to read as natural rather than cheap script mechanisms. The queen's initial insistence on connecting with Luke strikes as odd and would break the character if not for Patel's command over the material. He's also solid as a drag performer, expressing dazzlement beyond his Marcia Marcia Marcia-esque mug, finding the connective tissue between Aysha's style and their cultural heritage. Unicorns never transforms its ellipses into periods, but with such beautiful characterizations, that factor feels more like a feature than a fault.
STRANGE WAY OF LIFE, Pedro Almodóvar
Two cowboys reunite after twenty-five years apart in Pedro Almodóvar's latest short, a morsel of romance set in the Wild West, sometime in a dream of America's past. Jake is a sheriff whose disposition matches a blue color palette, loneliness corroding him from the inside out. In contrast, Silva is an unmoored figure, traveling without a set path through the desert. As they meet, passion burns bright, the flames of desire rekindled after a quarter century lying dormant. But is this a reunion of lovers or a father's desperate attempt to save his son?
Silva's motivations are a mystery, with a painful answer for Jake, who takes him to his bed while believing himself to be the target of sexual manipulation. Not that there's much suspense in this cinematic morsel, with the director preferring to linger on the languid moroseness of post-coitus rather than the ratcheting tensions inherent to the tale. Overall, it's a delicate exercise with a sentimental edge, walking toward a final line that would have had more impact if the preceding film could have worked itself up to it with proper pacing. We need more time with Jake and Silva than these scant thirty minutes.
Still, the men are hot and the images beautiful, shining with that trademark El Deseo artifice. The visceral quality of the West never supplants the fakery of immaculate costuming and strict color stories, closeups that appear detached from their environment, and a lush score preening like a peacock showing off its musical plumage. I only wish it didn't feel so rushed, the sketch of a feature instead of a short film succeeding on its own terms. Also, for all that Almodóvar posits Strange Way of Life as his riposte to Brokeback Mountain, his work's not much more daring than Ang Lee's 2005 triumph. Always dreaming of domesticity, the short is lovely but lacks bite.
Which of these queer stories sparks your curiosity? Are you excited about Solo, Unicorns, or Strange Way of Life?
Reader Comments (3)
Worst Almodóvar ever? It's almost like those commercials Wong Kar-Wai directs for BMW, Sony Bravia etc - great as a commercial but not an actual film?
This is just a Saint-Laurent commercial, a case in product placement.
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Yeah, STRANGE WAY OF LIFE is an odd one. Clearly shows its advertisement origins (Pedro's green jacket is to die for!) and is definitely rushed and not really as sexy or emotionally effective as I think it would've been if Almodovar was allowed to make an actual movie.