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The documentary “Come See in the Good Light” remembered poet Andrea Gibson and gave their wife, Megan Falley, a platform to reflect on the late artist’s life and the fleeting power of true love.
We live in a time restrained by hesitation but spurred on by the recent memory of limitless possibility. But the real hook is its bait-and-switch premise, revealed only as mainstream conservative scandal gives way to a lesbian network operating in plain sight.
In a year with great animated TV shows, it’s no surprise that the queer and weird “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” went slightly under the radar, but it’s a work that can delight those who can get on its specific wavelength. If the gay community’s visibility didn’t outright decline across film and TV (a statistic we won’t know for sure until studies on the subject come out next year), representation at least grew more cautious.
For Carol Sturka, the misanthropic survivor played by a pitch-perfect Rhea Seehorn, the Joining brings back horrific childhood memories of surviving conversion therapy her mother put her through as a child, a process designed to rob her of all that made her human. There is plenty of tenderness among these films to be sure, but there’s also Robin Williams doing a macho drag impersonation of John Wayne in The Birdcage and a pair of dirtbag girls just trying to scrape up enough cash for a beach trip in Never Goin’ Back.
From the lo-fi beginnings of John Waters to New Queer Cinema to the present day wave of queer coming-of-age movies popping up on Netflix, queer comedy has gone from the underground to the mainstream.
It’s both intentionally a little boring and completely engrossing — a snapshot of a time in queer history often overlooked and forgotten. But his life shifts from casual sex to something deeper and more probing when he encounters trans man William (Nina Rask), a first in terms of a queer intimate connection for Johan. Presenting sapphic desire as a force that must be negotiated, concealed, and ultimately survived, director Nia DaCosta’s jazzy gender-swapped take on the classic Henrik Ibsen play captures a glimmer of quietly joyous queer experience that’s rarely available on screen these days.
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Starring: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Nicholas Hoult
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos
#2
Critics Consensus: For viewers in search of an uncommonly smart, tender, and funny coming-of-age story, The Half of It has everything.
But as the titular firecracker, Tessa Thompson portrays Heddas as a blistering object of affection whose scintillating love interest (Nina Hoss) isn’t a fantasy or a burden.
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Have a great gay laugh with these gay comedies.
In a breakout performance Magnus Juhl Andersen plays Copenhagen-living, out gay man Johan who, as any out gay man does, engages in casual anonymous sex at the local sauna, where he also works as a receptionist. The revelation sends Yoshiki into a spiral of grief and guilt, but he also can’t bear the thought of losing Hikaru even more than he already has.
Horror, animation, and comedy continued to offer quirky space to gender-nonconforming creators (though that part of A24’s “Together” was censored in China), while high-style dramas like Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda” sought even greater depth in queer voices. Capitalism? —AF
“Come See Me In the Good Light”
Out of Sundance, Ryan White’s “Come See Me in the Good Light” emerged as one of the year’s instantly essential LGBTQ releases — refusing to separate identity from humanity, politics from intimacy, or love from fear.
But the brilliant casting of Mae Whitman as rookie cop Alex Dempsey, whose wife Laura (Sarah Gordon) gets them tangled up in the sordid underbelly of a small town and its strict reformatory school, asserts the series as an especially smart example of LGBTQ world-building. Gorgeously animated and delicately written, “The Summer Hikaru Died” tells a teen melodrama tale through a decidedly queer lens, asking how repression and self-hate can make one feel like their own desires are monstrous.
Over the summer, Pride marketing declined across major movie brands, and by the fall, streaming services had announced several cancellations of well-loved queer TV shows.
Season 17 arrived amid revived political hostility toward trans and gender-nonconforming people. —WC
“Wayward”
In the ever-expanding ocean of middling cult dramas, Netflix’s “Wayward” doesn’t really stand out.
Their secret connection plays out in the shadows of 1950s Britain but there’s no hiding chemistry this explosive. Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of Stephen King’s brutal novel approaches its dystopian death march with a kaleidoscopic sensitivity that’s attuned to the private fears, bonds, and longings of the young men facing extermination.