One of my favorite annual events is the Exhumed FIlms Ex-fest, in which the titular programming collective assembles 12 straight hours of exploitation films, each of a different genre, and all with the promise of relatively tasteless content. Yet every year, without fail, amidst the Kung-fu, bare breasts, and extreme violence, there’s at least one film that is actually pretty good. Meaning that there’s at least one flick that transcends its grindhouse shell, delivering something classier or, at the very least, more thematically sound than the rest of the programming. This isn’t to say that any of the films are outright bad, but that most require a the viewer to understand what the world was like when they were released. One typically has to make a few concessions regarding the quality of the craft or the hamhandedness of the thematic material.
To give you an example, one year the “high-quality” feature was Love Me Deadly, the unexpectedly warmhearted tale of a young woman who desperately wants to fuck a dead body. The grindhouse bonafides are apparent, but the film ended up being an honest exploration of fetishism, sexuality, and the oppression of female desire. It’s a brilliant and markedly progressive flick…but it just happens to be about a woman who can only orgasm if her suitor has departed this mortal coil. I highly recommend it, if you can wrap your head around such things.
It is in this very same spirit that I offer a high recommendation for Femme. It’s brand spankin’ new, but had it been made in 1978 and shot on Kodak, it would very much resemble the annual Ex-Fest “oh this is actually really good” entry.
This sizzling, complicated film tells the story of Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), a gay man who moonlights as a drag queen. One night while catching some fresh air outside of the club, a fully glammed-up Jules catches the eye of Preston (George MacKay). Later that night, Jules runs into Preston again, this time at a bodega. Surrounded by his friends, Preston’s behavior betrays his earlier silent interest in Jules, and when he starts to run his mouth, Jules undercuts his homophobic remarks with some well-timed shade. Reading is — say it with me — FUNDAMENTAL. This sass does not sit well with the hot-tempered thug, and within seconds the charged interaction devolves into a hate crime. Preston unleashes a disgusting and severe torrent of physical violence upon Jules, and just like that, our protagonist’s life has been unfairly and permanently altered.
As far as inciting incidents go, it’s a difficult one, but the script by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping (both of whom also directed the film) does not shy away from the brutality, instead using it as a springboard to kick off one of the more thematically complicated queer dramas I’ve seen. What follows is indeed a revenge movie, but it’s not the bloody, stylized actioner that the trailer might have you believe. This isn’t revenge by way of weapons and fisticuffs, but rather through blackmail and, strangely enough, curiosity. Jules has every intention of taking Preston down — of giving him a much-deserved punishment, but when the two meet once again, this time with Jules out of drag and thus unrecognizable to his attacker, things complicate. The initial intention is to out the homophobic and hypocritical attacker, but Jules’ open-mindedness, and unwillingness to be an agent of heteronormative oppression gives him pause. Could Preston be a victim himself? Is he even worth of such consideration?
It’s these questions that give Femme its edge and its balls. Nowhere in the film is it suggested that someone as rancid and awful as Preston deserves a second chance, but there is plenty of material suggesting that his hatred, as rancid and awful as it is, is fed by the same oppression that makes Jules’ life so dangerous on a daily basis. It’s a difficult thought to entertain, and Femme stares the concept straight in the face, fearlessly adding nuance to what could’ve found success being a simple cathartic tale of vengeance.
By being so direct and fearless, Femme is evocative of the aforementioned grindhouse era, albeit with a modern sheen and modern moral structure. It doesn’t dance around dangerous and scary thoughts, nor does it ever cheapen the character motivations by giving in to catharsis. The bulk of the film has us waiting for the hammer to drop, while also putting forth a tantalizing and, dare I say it, downright sexy romance. The eroticism on display is used to simultaneously titillate and upset — to keep viewers on seat’s edge as they wait for Jules to get justice; for Jules to take back his identity, his career, and his confidence.
Stewart-Jarrett has the difficult task of creating a character who we root for as much as we pity. Jules’ transformation from confident to meek is terrifying to behold, and Stewart-Jarrett gives the transformation the veracity it requires. What could’ve been written with broad splashes and high style is instead brought to life by Jules’ humanity, warts and all.
The same high praise must be offered to MacKay, whose Preston is surface-level terrifying when he’s just some homophobe who wants to stomp on his inferiors but which becomes even scarier as we begin understand his motivations. There are people out there just like him, so self-hating and image-conscious that they’ll treat a fellow human being as nothing more than a plaything just to serve their own sexual needs and avoid social discomfort. When tasked with exhibiting Preston’s charms, MacKay succeeds wonderfully. It’s a difficult job to humanize someone who we would be right to regard as fundamentally broken, but MacKay does the impossible and creates a character who, even knowing how terrible he is, is a believably social creature. I get that he has friends. I get that he has an image.
This complicated characterization makes one’s guts churn, and I’m sure that said churn will turn plenty off from the film. I can see the detractors now, lamenting that it gives homophobes a pass. But going beyond the text and engaging with the material earnestly one can see that this is very much not the case. If anything, by humanizing Preston, it serves to remind us that the bad guys are so rarely mustache-twirling evildoers with a gleefully evil laugh. Nope, they’re just like you and me. There’s probably a few within just a mile of where you currently stand. You might even know them. You might even like them.
Adding to the neo-grindhouse feel is a propulsive and often-dreamy score by Adam Janet Bzowski and the gorgeous cinematography by James Rhodes that alternates from grimy and damp to the high-contrast lighting and color reminiscent of a nightclub. It goes well-beyond the poorly-named bisexual lighting so common among nighttime-set queer cinema.
The detachment that comes with revisiting socially aware grindhouse movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s is part of what makes watching them so much fun. We can roll our eyes at passé social norms, the use of language that has since fallen out of favor, and explicit sexuality being employed just to make the men in the audience happy, while also recognizing the art that arises from the limitations the filmmakers faced. Transpose all of that to a contemporary update of the genre, and we lose that detachment. Certainly we cannot be sure how Femme will be received 50 years from now, but here in 2024 it scratches the itch of genre thrills while also lending a rare level of nuance to the proceedings. Art, no matter the era from which it comes, is best when it’s complicated — when the viewer might not like what they’re seeing, but cannot turn away from it. Femme casts such a spell, and does so with a pointedly erotic edge.
Directed by Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping
Written by Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping
Starring Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, George MacKay, John McCrea, Antonia Clarke
Not Rated, 99 minutes
