Femme movie storyline. With his performances as Aphrodite Banks, Jules has a place among London’s celebrated drag artists. One night after a show, he steps out to get some cigarettes and is brutally attacked by a guy out with a gang of blokes. Although Jules is able to recover physically, he withdraws from the outside world, traumatised. Months later, he recognises his attacker by chance in a gay sauna. Without make-up and wrapped only in a towel, Jules is able to approach the other man incognito and find out who he is. He begins an affair with the closeted homosexual Preston in order to take his revenge.
Directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping deploy a direct style and tightly woven scenes to depict a London of stark contrasts in terms of gender ideology. Carried by their cast’s physically and psychologically subtle performances, their revenge drama is gripping, but more importantly it is also the study of a milieu that avoids social determinism. A compelling psychological portrait of internalised homophobia and a powerful and brave pro-LGBTIQ+ kick against a society that, at its core, is totalitarian, anti-gay and anti-trans.
Femme is a 2023 British thriller film written and directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping in their feature debut. It is a feature-length adaptation of their BAFTA-nominated 2021 short film of the same name. The film had its world premiere in the Panorama section of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival on 19 February 2023. It was released in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 1 December 2023 by Signature Entertainment.
Film Review for Femme
Months after drag performer Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is beaten in a homophobic attack, he sees the man who did it (George MacKay) in a gay sauna — and sets about seeking revenge.
Neo-noir meets erotic thriller meets queer revenge tale in Femme, the feature debut from writer-directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, based on their 2021 award-winning short of the same name. It stars Misfits and Candyman’s Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Jules, a drag artist who goes by the name Aphrodite Banks on stage, introduced via a lavish lip-sync routine. That’s followed quickly by a chilling homophobic encounter with a group of men — headed up by George MacKay’s Preston — in a corner shop that leaves Jules bloody, bruised and completely traumatised.
Months later, when Jules sees Preston in a gay sauna, he concocts a plan to expose him — to sleep with him, film it, and share it online. This sets up a tense, exhilarating, often-uncomfortable exploration of sexual manipulation and shifting senses of masculinity — a pulse-pounding thriller delivered through a fascinating dual character study.
Stewart-Jarrett is mesmerising as Jules, embodying complete and utter empowerment in his Aphrodite persona every bit as convincingly as he does the shrinking, shell-shocked version of him post-beating. He goes looking for comfort in the destruction of his attacker, but finds a strangely compelling connection with Preston instead. What starts out as rough, meaningless sex — during which Jules sometimes seems as attracted to Preston as he does afraid of him — develops into something deeper, and Jules’ adherence to a more heteronormative gender expression to fit in with Preston’s mates sees him eventually start to experiment with exerting dominance over him, flipping the script to stay in control.
His chemistry with George MacKay is off the charts — breaking out of his more conventional, leading-man-type roles in 1917 and the like, MacKay here leans into the dark menace and hyper-masculinity he exhibited in Justin Kurzel’s True History Of The Kelly Gang. Preston is a hot-headed, animalistic presence, his chin constantly lifted in defiant aggression, MacKay physically transformed through a layer of tattoos and costume design. Your fists clench whenever he’s on screen, waiting for the thing that’s going to set him off, the foot that Jules puts wrong. It’s to MacKay’s credit that he inspires this kind of fear as well as sympathy later on, as Jules starts to get under his skin, and we get an idea of what made him this way.
This kind of revenge story isn’t new, and neither is the idea of a closeted homophobe projecting his internal shame onto those comfortable in their identity. There’s also little surprise in where the narrative eventually ends up — though the final few scenes are undoubtedly gut-wrenching — and whether it’s a worthwhile exercise to generate compassion for someone who so casually committed such a violent hate-crime is up for debate. But here, execution matters — the clarity of directorial vision, grounded screenplay and excellent performances make Femme a vividly compelling ride.
Directed by: Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping
Starring: Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, George Mackay, Aaron Heffernan, John McCrea, Asha Reid, Peter Clements, Antonia Clarke, Moe Bar-El, Nima Taleghani, Peter McPherson, Paris Tenana
Screenplay by: Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping
Production Design by: Christopher Melgram
Cinematography by: James Rhodes
Film Editing by: Selina Macarthur
Costume Design by: Buki Ebiesuwa
Art Direction by: Richard Nik Evans, Mark Harriott, William Rowe
Music by: Adam Janota Bzowski
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Utopia (United States)
Release Date: March 22, 2024 (United States)
Visits: 29
