In this capsule review from the San Francisco Frameline Film Festival, Alex Heeney reviews Carmen Emmi’s feature debut Plainclothes.
Discover one film you didn’t know you needed:
Not in the zeitgeist. Not pushed by streamers.
But still easy to find — and worth sitting with.
And a guide to help you do just that.
In Carmen Emmi’s film Plainclothes, closeted police officer Lucas (Tom Blyth) spends his days in 1997 in plainclothes entrapping and arresting gay men having sex in the bathroom at a local mall — until he meets Andrew (Russell Tovey) and ponders living more openly and not being at the centre of persecution. It’s a part of recent history ripe for revisiting, especially as audiences will have more compassion for these men than they have for themselves. The film’s treatment of the many disguises the men wear and how they take many (but not all) of them off when they’re together is tender and lovely. But the non-linear storytelling and fussy surveillance footage takes away from these two compelling, layered performances.
Context for Carmen Emmi’s film Plainclothes
Founded in 1977, Frameline is the longest-running, largest, and most widely recognized queer film exhibition event in the world.
Tom Blyth had a supporting role in Terrence Davies’ final film, Benediction (2021), a queer story set around WWI. He was one of our most exciting emerging actors out of TIFF that year.
Russell Tovey has starred in many queer films, and was a series regular on HBO’s Looking; the premiere of Looking: The Movie took place at Frameline.
Carmen Emmi’s Plainclothes is the first leading role for Tom Blyth in queer cinema.
Discover one film you didn’t know you needed
Not in the zeitgeist. Not pushed by streamers.
But still easy to find — and worth sitting with.
And a guide to help you do just that.
