Nostalgia is a frequent tool in the queer kit and a potent one. Recent hits like I Saw the TV Glow play on the current cultural retread of Y2K aesthetics, albeit to less sugar-high results than director Alexis Langlois’ debut feature, Queens of Drama. The French filmmaker paints nostalgic imagery with a bold brush – at times, a little too bold. In this “glittercore” piece, style overtakes substance every time.
The film follows Langlois’ short film success with “Terror, Sisters!” and “The Demons of Dorothy,” both black horror comedies dealing in high-camp French queerness. While the test results for Queens of Drama reveal no horror in its blood, high levels of black comedy keep it much in the same realm as Langlois’ previous work.
Fresh face Louiza Aura (in her first feature credit) plays a pop-star allegory in protagonist Mimi Madamour, whose rise to the top is challenged by her on-again, off-again affair with Billie Kohler, a genderqueer character played by genderqueer actor Gio Ventura. My own experience of the Aughts informs my interpretation of their character inspirations, I admit: Weeks spent glued to American Idol and Entertainment Tonight mean I catch the hints of Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears inherent to Mimi’s initial good-girl image. She sings her way to a record deal via in-movie Idol stand-in Starlettes en herbes, or Starlets Factory, but stays in the closet despite repeated calls from the more “punk” Billie for Mimi to embrace their trashy dyke love. Their relationship tears at its glittery seams in a 2x speed version of A Star Is Born until Billie is lying in the trash while Mimi stalks back to her closet.
There’s much fun to be had in this poppy send-up of Aughts era culture – though a time jump shaves in a taste of the 2010s, which confuses the satirical elements rather than enhances them. Still, magenta and cheetah print drape every set as though pulled straight from a Delia’s catalog. There’s even a scene featuring a skate park, where every Aughties boy worth their crustache attempted to be the next Tony Hawk. Queens delights in its inspirations, saturates its toxic love story with the markings of an era just now getting its resurgence.
Of course, in Langlois’ slick style, what was in reality an uneven aesthetic period gets smoothed over into perfect album cover art – an edited copy rather than faithful reproduction. That’s part of Queens’ allure, which I’m sure will charm many 16-year-old cinephiles as the neon in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive so enamored me. But it also represents a limitation. Whatever message of embracing the weird therein doesn’t hit harder than the chorus of a pop song, since all the freaks in this film are supermodel gorgeginos who cry at the sight of a drag queen performance. Perhaps this is where the horror DNA inherent to previous Langlois efforts would be welcome: more outright horrific prosthetics rather than just plastic-surgery suggestions. I’ll never say no to a faux acid-melted face.
I’m not mad at the movie, and I’m not head over heels either. That’s okay, you know; not every queer film rocks me to my core. Queens of Drama will definitely be someone’s favorite movie, and probably many people’s third favorite new French queer cinema entry. But for me, there’s just not enough core under the glitter.
This article appears in April 25 • 2025.
