31-year-old actor George MacKay has really moved up in the world ever since Sam Mendes cast him in as the lead in “1917,” but the young actor (also known for “The Beast” and “Wolf”) pulls off one of his most challenging roles in the upcoming, so-called “queer thriller,” “Femme.” The British film was written and directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping in their feature-length debut and centers on challenging issues like homophobia and revenge. “Femme” is also an adaptation of their BAFTA-nominated 2021 short film of the same name.
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Alongside MacKay, the film stars Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (“Candyman”), Aaron Heffernan, John McCrea, and Asha Reid. The film has a provocative premise and follows Jules (Stewart-Jarrett), who is targeted in a horrific homophobic attack, destroying his life and career. Sometime after that event, he encounters Preston (MacKay), one of his attackers, in a gay sauna, and he wants revenge. Obviously, playing a violent homophobe is a risk, but it’s one that evidently powers a striking film,
Here’s the official synopsis:
With his performances as Aphrodite Banks, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Candyman) has a place among London’s celebrated drag artists. One night, after a show, he steps out to get some cigarettes and is brutally attacked by a man (George MacKay, 1917) out with a gang of his friends. Although Jules is able to recover physically, he withdraws from the outside world, traumatized. Months later, he recognizes his attacker by chance in a gay sauna. Without make-up and wrapped only in a towel, Jules is able to approach the other man incognito and find out who he is. He begins an affair with the closeted Preston with a plan to take his revenge.
“Femme” opens on March 22nd at the IFC Center in New York and March 29th at AMC The Grove in Los Angeles, with a national expansion to follow via Utopia Distribution Watch the first trailer below.