Tucked film review – ‘a heart-warming tale of two drag queens’

★★★★ by Ifan Llewelyn

To many, the drag queen exists only between the four walls of a bar or the four sides of a TV screen, where they’re expected to sing, dance, lipsync, tell jokes, insult and then hang around knocking back shots at the bar. Seeing them anywhere outside these parameters is like being a child and seeing your English teacher buying a microwave lasagne in Tesco. Leaning into this discomfort, Tucked has you taking a harsh look at the person behind those fake eyelashes and over-drawn lips.

Jackie is one of those work-horse drag queens who’s been tickling the crowds at a Brighton drag bar for the best part of two decades, churning out those old faithful on-liners (that you’ve probably heard a hundred times before) between park and bark lipsyncs to that Gloria Gaynor song. “Her husband gave her a bunch of flowers and she said she’d now have spread her legs.” “Why? Don’t you got a vase?” Suddenly she wakes up to the stark and dreary reality of her life, falling to the floor of her cramped flat with no-one to pick her back up, followed by a diagnosis that leaves her with a few weeks left to live. Just when things appear hopeless, in minces Faith, a 21-year-old queen who just landed a gig at Jackie’s bar. The two form an unlikely friendship when Jackie gives Faith a place to stay after discovering they’re homeless. 

As the aged drag queen, Derren Nesbitt is eerily familiar when painted and slinking around the bar in a sequined gown, looking like any queen you’d see working your local gay pub. It’s when Jackie is out of her regalia, becoming Jack, that Nesbitt can play to his strengths and portray the profound regret that haunts Jack. Having not attended his late wife’s funeral and subsequently losing touch with his daughter, looking back is painful, but ultimately where he finds solace.

What the film does very successfully is not only having an inter-generational conversation between two queer people at different times in their lives who have grown up in vastly different societies, but who also have totally opposing ideas when it comes to drag and identity. Jackie is an old school ‘cock-in-a-frock’ queen who’s very much a man in a dress, whereas Faith is a gender non-conforming individual who expresses themselves through the art of drag. As the gender-fluid Faith, Jordan Stephen (better known as one half of British hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks) gives himself over completely as the drag queen who’s just finding their footing after being turned for wanting to be a singer and ‘sucking cock’. Though the mannerisms might not have settled comfortably, there’s an earnestness to his depiction of someone who’s flouting gender norms by virtue of being themselves. 

The film sustains a very real conversation around identity which doesn’t hold itself back behind labels. It’s how the queens down at your local drag bar talk about queer issues, who might misstep when it comes to language. Despite saying outright that they’re not a boy or a girl, Faith is still referred to as ‘he’. Maybe the inclusion of dialogue around pronouns might have engaged the film in an ongoing conversation, but that would run the risk of centralising identity in a piece more concerned about human stories. So many labels are thrown around but none of them fit perfectly which is often the case in life.

At its heart, this is a film about queer kinship, building your own family when you’re cast out by your own because of who you are. It’s a love letter to the inter-generational ethos of the queer community, where youngsters can not only learn from their elders but also reciprocate with a fresh perspective. Though not radical in its conclusion, Tucked is a touching portrait of radical friendship. 

Tucked is released in cinemas on the 17th of May.

 

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