Femme: A Dangerously Toxic Film

Trigger Warning! Mild talk of sexual assault

Femme is the debut feature by writer/directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping. Based upon their short with the same name, the film explores the seriously dark sides of two men who are both deeply traumatized by the toxic masculine and acting upon deep seated fear.

With powerful performances by leads George MacKay (Preston) and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Jules), the film wanders down an exceedingly dark path where both characters become equally loathsome with zero redemption at the end.

Lost

Jules works as a drag queen in a hopping queer club in London. One night, when he is outside on a smoke break, he notices that he is out of cigarettes and walks to a corner shop to get more. While in there, Preston and his group of friends come in.

Preston notices Jules and seems very struck by him. As the friends notice that Jules is in drag, the homophobic inferences towards Jules begin. Though Jules tries to ignore it at first, he decides to come back at Preston in an attempt to put him in his place.

Due to Preston’s extreme homophobia he, of course, has to slather his toxic masculine all over Jules because he’s so insecure about his own homosexuality. Preston follows Jules outside and brutally attacks him.

Jules’s life is turned on its head and he is unable to continue working.

the dregs

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Later, Jules is relaxing at a gay bathhouse when he notices Preston is there, loudly shaming another man for hitting on him. Jules follows him into the locker room and notices that his locker is right next to Preston’s. Somehow not recognizing Jules out of drag, Preston eyes him up, and on his way out demands Jules follow him.

When Jules finds him outside, he gets in Preston’s car and they drive off together to have sex at Preston’s apartment. Preston continues to be demanding, wanting Jules to follow behind him so no one sees them together.

They start the process of their noxious affair, but are interrupted when Preston’s friends let themselves in to the apartment. Preston introduces Jules as his “mate” to his friends, which continues down a closeted, pernicious, rabbit hole of obsessive darkness.

Jules, plotting his “revenge”, watches toxic, gay, outing porn sites. He pursues the idea of getting a video of them having sex, to out and humiliate Preston, thinking that this will somehow make him feel better.

For the rest of the show it becomes a shame inducing cesspool that consistently humiliates only Jules.

In all honesty…

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Femme is a mephitic story of two seriously unstable characters, who choose to go down the path of darkness and destruction into a toxic relationship of epic proportions.

With beautiful lighting and cinematography, we see two human beings on opposite sides of the toxic masculine. Preston, who most likely was traumatized by the straight normative, is a beastly man with hardly any feelings or remorse, and when threatened, lashes out like the wounded animal he is.

Jules on the other hand is clearly out and open about his homosexuality and challenging gender norms, but in seeking revenge in a way that will traumatize him more, he too falls into an inescapable darkness that he cannot be redeemed from.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I found this film extremely disturbing. Not only for the homophobic brutality inflicted by Preston, but mostly by the way Jules counters his attacker with a revoltingly submissive catharsis of degradation I’ve not yet seen the likes of.

The filmmakers chose a path for Jules that made him almost equally as culpable as Preston, in the sense that he would go so far as to knowingly out someone, who is unaware, in a despicable public arena and disgrace himself by willingly having sex with, and becoming attracted to his attacker.

There is nothing redeeming about this film, as the two characters walk the line of psychosis, attempting to find their way through their darkness using more darkness. They couldn’t be more blind and unaware.

There is nothing thrilling, erotic or sexy about the story, only more and more malignant behaviors until the final scene where no one has changed or learned anything.

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Jules is a physically larger and stronger bodied person who couldn’t be bested by Preston in any way unless he allowed it. At one point Jules does try to overpower Preston, which I thought might be a chance for his redemption, but instead he continues to be the shivering submissive every time Preston shouts.

Though I wanted to root for Jules, the lengths he goes to in humiliating himself casts a horrible shadow of rape culture as well. Jules may not have been physically raped in Preston’s first attack, but it felt like he got physically and emotionally raped over and over again every time he continued to go back to him.

Make no mistake, there is zero presence of real love here in either man, personally or together.

None of the craft behind or on scene can save this repulsive tale. It takes the LGBTQ+ community’s struggles for equality, advancement and humanity, and basically vomits on it. It also leaves LGBTQ+ people open for more ways that the ignorant can judge and revile us more, should they choose to generalize us by these characters.

With no justice, no growth in the characters, no redeemable qualities in either, it’s just a graphic ick fest of mental illness gone exceedingly wrong, with queer characters who both need years of serious therapy, and in Preston’s case, jail time.

They could have chosen an endless number of ways for Jules to get justice that would’ve been far more clever and interesting, instead, they lead him down this path of indignity and willful destruction.

There are, most decidedly, much better queer films to choose to spend your time on. No need to waste your time here in the dark.