At TIFF 2025, Alex discusses Nicholas Hytner’s film The Choral on the podcast, starring Ralph Fiennes, and why it’s not a queer film despite having a queer protagonist and queer creatives.
How can a film with a queer protagonist, written by a queer playwright, and directed by a queer man… not be a queer film? That’s the knot I found myself tugging at with The Choral, which just had its world premiere at TIFF.
It’s gorgeous to look at, with Ralph Fiennes giving yet another magnetic performance. But the way it handles queerness — and race, class, and other marginalized identities — left me asking: is this progress, or just a sanitized version of history?
In this episode, I share:
- My fangirl history with Nicholas Hytner and Ralph Fiennes (including some extreme theatre nerdery).
- Why The Choral works as a polished crowd-pleaser but falters as queer storytelling.
- What’s at stake when films “include” marginalized identities but smooth away the risks and conflicts.
- The bigger questions this raises about what counts as a queer film — and whether mainstream stories can ever hold that complexity.
✨ Living Out Loud Summit
🎟 And if those questions are buzzing in your head too, I’d love to invite you to Living Out Loud — a free three-day online summit happening October 3–5.
Together with critics, scholars, and filmmakers, we’ll unpack what it really means to reclaim queer and trans histories on screen, and where film sometimes falls short.
Related Episodes to Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral at TIFF 2025
182. Between Dreams and Hope and queer and trans survival TIFF 2025
181. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value at TIFF 2025
Podcast Credits for this episode on Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral
Alex Heeney edited, produced, and recorded the episode.
Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.
Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram.
An AI-generated transcript for the episode is available on Apple Podcasts.
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.
