DRAG INTERACTIONS

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Makeup--Sacha is a quiet young French chef who has moved from Paris to London to start work as an online food critic. We see that his hand is afflicted at times with cramps and tremors from some neurological problem; presumably this is what necessitated the career shift. He's rented a room from Pete, a friendly if somewhat aggressively brusque young stockbroker.

Director Hugo André plays Sacha; he co-wrote the script with Will Masheter, who plays Pete. The story doesn't go any direction you're very likely to guess. It seems, initially, as if Sacha will be the focus, but instead he's mostly the observer of the drama.

The superficially "manly" Pete, it turns out, is an aspiring drag burlesque performer, unbeknownst to his toxically masculine work circle. He senses a sympathetic ear in his new housemate, inviting Sacha to see him perform in cabaret, and sharing the motivations and secret identity with the bemused fellow that he hides from his coworkers. The reserved Sacha is initially taken aback, unsure how to respond to Pete's bluff overtures and startling, unsolicited candor. Very gradually, however, the friendship deepens.

That's pretty much all there is to this low-budget festival fave, but it's well-acted, and it has a certain authenticity and unembarrassed sensitivity that can't be dismissed. It insists we take Pete's emotional courage seriously; you've never seen a drag movie this free of camp.

And this is probably necessary because, alas, it's politically timely. Back in 1995, I remember a friend of mine rolling his eyes elaborately at a poster for To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, a routine comedy distinguished (aside from its peculiar title) only because it featured Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo as drag queens traveling cross-country. My friend wondered aloud if anybody still thought drag was scandalous.

Back then, I might have thought he had a point. 1978's La Cage aux Folles and its American version The Birdcage (released the year after To Wong Foo) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert as well the rise of RuPaul all seemed to suggest that drag had attained relatively mainstream status. But nearly three decades later, reactionaries in parts of this country have picked drag, of all freaking things, as a target for ginned-up phony social and political outrage, and it appears that we'll all have to stick up for drag queens after all.

Similarly, back in the '90s I might have wondered if the sneering mockery and professional injustice that we see Pete subjected to in Makeup when his avocation is revealed was exaggerated and melodramatic. In these retrograde times, it seems all too plausible.