Bringing a strong local flavour to the world premiere selection at this week’s BFI London Film Festival, Pretty Red Dress initially feels like a familiar exercise in downbeat urban realism before taking a glorious left turn into queer desire, daring self-expression and cross-dressing taboo themes. The feature debut of prize-winning shorts writer-director Dionne Edwards, who developed it via the Sundance screenwriting program, this quasi-musical family story shares some superficial parallels with the hit drag-queen musical Kinky Boots, but it is played much more as sensitive drama than camp comedy.
In her LFF press notes, Edwards explains that she is less interested in examining the motives for cross-dressing than she is in exploring the cultural shame and anxiety around queerness, particularly when it collides with black British masculinity. That said, Pretty Red Dress is more joyful celebration of diversity than anguished sermon, though it does veer into soapy melodrama and heavy-handed caricature in places. Rarely seen on screen, this sparky intersection of racial and sexual tensions is sure to attract more festival interest after London, while the big-hearted message and handful of high-energy musical numbers hint at commercial crossover potential.
The working-class South London family at the heart of Pretty Red Dress is a hotbed of secrets, lies and repressed desires. Best known in Britain as a former winner of TV talent show The X Factor, singer Alexandra Burke makes a strong screen acting debut as Candice, a thirtysomething supermarket worker who dreams of showing off her ample vocal skills in West End musicals, an echo of Burke’s own career in recent years. Her partner Travis (Natey Jones) has just arrived home after serving prison time for drug dealing, their warmly romantic reunion tinged with tension over money issues and wider family tensions. The duo’s sassy teenage daughter Kenisha (Temilola Olatunbosun) is currently struggling at school, picking fights with classmates and tentatively testing out her crushes on other girls.
Fate swings in Candice’s favour when she lands an audition for a glitzy new stage musical about Tina Turner. Despite his impoverished state, Travis shows support by buying her a sparkly, lipstick-red mini-dress to help get into character, which he pays for by grudgingly taking up the offer of a minimum-wage job from his wealthy, condescending, semi-estranged older brother Clive (Rolan Bell). But it soon transpires that Travis has an ulterior motive in buying the dress. When he is home alone, he begins clandestinely squeezing his muscular, tattooed torso into its slinky contours himself, adding wig and make-up for maximum glam-diva transformation.
After his cross-dressing secret is discovered, first by a bemused Kenisha (hilarious non-verbal shade-throwing from Olatunbosun here) then by an incensed Candice, a mortally embarrassed Travis tries to explain his behaviour away as a clumsy joke. But these erotically charged, gender-blurring expressions of his hidden self prove increasingly hard to hide , even briefly arousing Candice’s sexual curiosity. Travis is not gay, he tearfully insists, “I just like being pretty sometimes.” Wrestling with feelings of shame and self-loathing, plus potential social rejection and even violence from his macho peers, Travis starts to crack up just as Kenisha faces a major crisis at school and Candice is gearing up for her final high-stakes audition.
A little too baggy in its rambling mid-section, Pretty Red Dress could have made its point more concisely. Some of the secondary characters also feel crudely drawn, notably the smug blowhard Clive. But overall, Edwards has made a rich and engaging debut which puts a fresh spin on the narrow conventions of black British urban drama. Highly impressive for screen novices, Jones and Olatunbosun both give fully committed performances while Burke holds the story together as the main emotional anchor – as well as giving stomping, show-stopping performances of Tina Turner classics including River Deep, Mountain High and Proud Mary. Turner and her manager husband Erwin Bach are thanked in the credits, and there is even a winking visual homage to the What’s Love Got to Do With It video late in the film. Alongside a plaintive piano score by Hugo Brijs, the soundtrack also features an authentically South London mix of dancehall reggae, lovers rock, R&B and grime.
Director, screenwriter: Dionne Edwards
Cast: Natey Jones, Alexandra Burke, Temilola Olatunbosun , Rolan Bell
Cinematography: Adam Scarth
Editing: Adonis Trattos
Music: Hugo Brijs
Producer: Georgia Goggin
Production company: Teng Teng Films (UK)
World sales: Protagonist
Venue: London Film Festival (Love)
In English
110 minutes
