Ode to cinema: Femme

Go and see Femme. It hits with the adrenaline rush of a text message revealing your partner’s infidelity. This revenge thriller is one you’ll watch in a single breath. More importantly, Femme exposes how victims of violence, in their search for stability, so often find themselves burdened with an uninvited sense of guilt. It’s a film that not only quickens your pulse but also casts light on the darker side of human experience.

Directed by first-time filmmakers Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, the story follows London drag artist Jules. After a performance, he stops to buy a pack of cigarettes at a late-night shop, where he is brutally attacked by Preston (George Mackay) and his friends. The assault leaves Jules stripped and bleeding in the street. What follows is a black hole of trauma, in which he battles the shadows of his own mind – with Street Fighter as his only, paradoxical distraction.

Appearance tells a story too. The only form of adornment comes in the shape of glitter eyeliner and flamboyant costumes, each carrying its own narrative. Preston, for instance, appears in a different outfit in every scene, as if constantly searching for something to hold on to, like a teenager who needs his Jordans just to step outside.

The script itself is banal in the best possible way. It is a dance between submission and dominance, where aggression and sex are two sides of the same blade. Jules tries to redefine the boundary between good and evil and becomes entangled in a maze whose exit grows ever harder to find. This dance turns even more confusing when he begins to develop feelings for Preston. Here, we witness how trauma and desire can intersect: Stockholm syndrome in action.

In a way, Jules refuses to remain a victim. He takes hold of his trauma and reverses the roles, turning the most intimate act into a weapon of revenge.

The directors heighten this feeling through their visual language: dark streets washed in neon light and close-ups where skin and touch appear raw and electric. It feels intimate and dangerous at once, drawing the viewer into the confusion experienced by the victim.

Femme also reveals the contrast between the power of drag performers on stage and the vulnerability they so often face once they leave it. The glitter and glamour of performance seem almost a necessity, a way to counterbalance the cold reality of the outside world.

This is felt most powerfully in the scene where Jules hesitates before buying cigarettes. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett captures this fear perfectly with his eyes. For members of the LGBTQIA+ community and for women, a simple walk in the dark can be a choice between life and death.

Femme is more than a noir thriller; it is a mirror of our reality. It shows how violence shatters, and how the fragments are pieced back together, unevenly, imperfectly. A process that is anything but passive. The film makes clear that a victim is far more than the word suggests: not someone who succumbs, but someone who survives. And that strength is something no one can take away.

Jules is a survivor.