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…

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…

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…