Sally El Hosaini is a Welsh-Egyptian filmmaker who released this, her third feature. It was co-directed by James Krishna Floyd who is an English actor of Indian Tamil descent. Floyd was also the star of Hosaini's debut, My Brother the Devil (2013), a film in which Floyd played a man who explores his sexuality after identifying as straight and coming from an immigrant family or a family that originates either in the Middle East or Southeast Asia, or some Muslim country. The subject of homosexuality with the male children of Muslim families has been a subject increasingly explored. There was a twin film to this one called Layla (2025), which is again about a queer young man from a Muslim family, but the other issues in Layla were more interesting than the other issues here, which felt superficial. The difference is that Layla was written and directed by Amrou Al-Kadhi who is a queer person themselves. Hosaini and Floyd who are a couple in real life are not queer, as far as has been reported, so their film didn't feel like it had that extra depth or totally authentic voice that Layla did.
In an interview, Floyd revealed that this film, at one point, was going to be a TV series. As such, it feels like there's a lot of stuff here that get short shrift. In a lot of ways, it's a story that feels like it exists in a well thought-out world. At the same time, it can also feel like things are getting skipped over in favor of rushing to the end. At one point, a character says a couple of years have gone by and I couldn't tell if the character was lying or telling the truth because the film doesn't do that great a job of delineating how much time has actually passed. I figured that if this were a TV series, that amount of time passing would be acceptable. As one film, that amount of time makes this thing feel rushed or disjointed.
Ben Hardy (Bohemian Rhapsody and X-Men: Apocalypse) stars as Luke Tillson, an auto mechanic who works in his father's garage. He also lives with his single father who is helping Luke to raise his 5-year-old son, Jaime. There's no mention of where Luke's mother is. Luke is obviously not married and the mother of Jaime left for some unknown reason. One night, Luke is eating alone in some nice restaurant when he discovers underneath is a nightclub that features dancers.
Jason Patel, in his feature debut, co-stars as Aysha, a drag queen who is one of the dancers in the nightclub. He sees Luke and starts to flirt with him. Luke doesn't realize at first that Aysha is in drag. Luke thinks Aysha is really a woman. When Luke realizes that Aysha is actually a boy, he retreats. However, Aysha pursues Luke and gives him a job as a driver. Basically, Aysha convinces Luke with a lot of money to be his chauffeur. Aysha admits that he's smitten with Luke, but Luke's reaction to Aysha being a boy is one of repulsion. Luke then continues to identify as straight, so it's not really clear why Aysha would pursue Luke. He would have to assume Luke is closeted, but even then, why pursue a closeted person when there are so many openly gay men in the present-day?
Luke literally runs away from Aysha. The only reason they see each other again is because Aysha tracks him down. Ostensibly, Aysha's excuse is because he needs a chauffeur. Yet, it's never explained why Aysha wouldn't just take a taxi. It's also never explained why he wouldn't hire literally anyone else from his community. The reason Aysha tracks down Luke is clearly because Aysha is attracted and wants to have sex with Luke. As such, this film essentially reiterates the stereotype or trope of a gay man pursuing a straight man with the goal of converting him.
To the filmmaker's credit, Aysha doesn't take any overt actions to pressure Luke into anything sexual or romantic. However, the fact that Aysha goes out of his way to find Luke and bribe him is very telling. It's not predatory, but borderline creepy. The filmmakers would probably argue that Luke isn't straight, that he's likely a closeted gay man or somewhere in the LGBTQ family, and that it took his meeting Aysha to get him out the closet and unlock that part of himself. Yet, having Aysha decide to unlock that part of Luke, based on one interaction feels ridiculous or highly contrived.
It makes me want to interrogate Aysha's dating life. Obviously, if Aysha were dating someone, he never would've gone toward Luke. My question is why isn't Aysha dating someone. He's certainly not shy. He lives in London where there certainly isn't a lack of LGBTQ people. At one point, Aysha mentions having another driver before Luke who had feelings for him, so it's not as if Aysha hasn't had other opportunities. It's just not clear what Aysha hoped to get out of getting Luke to be his driver that wasn't trying to seduce a straight boy, which again is a problematic stereotype or trope.
Even if you put all that aside, the exploration of Luke's sexuality is so superficial. The reason he's interested in Aysha is because he thinks he's a woman. When that illusion is shattered, the question then becomes if this is something brand new for him. Luke says he's 27. Are we meant to believe that Luke never had any kind of same-sex attraction at all before this? Has a switch been flipped and he's no longer attracted to women? Was he never attracted and he was only having sex with women, which we see in the opening scene, out of heteronormativity? Does he identify as bisexual? It's not that Luke should be reduced to a specific label, but if we're going to explore his sexuality, let's fully explore. It's not even clear if Luke would be interested in bottoming. This is not out of prurient interest. Aysha specifically says he's a top and the whole premise is that Luke is running away from the idea of having sex with a boy. This is not dissimilar to what we get in My Brother the Devil. Hosaini and Floyd did not explore these questions in that 2013 picture, but that film wasn't exclusively told from the point-of-view of the queer characters, so it made sense to have that distance or remove. It doesn't make sense to have that distance here.
Not Rated but for mature audiences.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 59 mins.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray.