by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Maria Dizzia, Christian Cooke, Darius Fraser, Gabe Fazio
Intro:
… as brutal in its honesty as it is steadfast in its compassion.
On 15 October 2014, Rory Moroney was arrested for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at Recreation Park in Long Beach, California. The arrest was made as part of an ongoing sting operation targeting the local Gay cruising scene, with undercover officers engaging in entrapment in order to secure those arrests.
It was a sobering reminder that United States law enforcement practices, going all the way back to the 1910s, were still being adhered to, even with all the sociopolitical progress and visibility that had been achieved over those decades, and how modern complaints about non-hetero sexuality being ‘shoved in everyone’s faces’ belied how keeping it in the shadows still isn’t enough for some to feel ‘safe’. This particular arrest would eventually be overturned on 29 April 2016… but the chilling effect lingers.
This is the true story that inspired Plainclothes, the feature debut of writer/director Carmen Emmi. Shifting the setting from 2010s Cali to 1990s Syracuse, harkening to Emmi’s own coming-of-age story, the film follows plainclothes officer Lucas (Tom Blyth) as he engages in such a targeted sting operation, whose own closeted sexuality comes to the forefront once he catches the eye of older gentleman Andrew (Russell Tovey).
Stylistically, this is as much a clandestine Gay romance as it is a haunting psychological thriller. The visuals from DP Ethan Palmer shift between standard widescreen and letterboxed Hi8 video stock, with scratchy sound design and scraggly video grain wielded in bursts to show the raw cerebral strain that Lucas regularly deals with. A purposeful tear in audiovisual clarity to match Lucas’ own struggles to be truly seen.
Sitting in claustrophobic police meeting rooms, where his superiors cloak their systemic discrimination with concerns about child murderers learning their tricks from the same spaces, and staking out malls for the right/wrong guy to make eye contact with and spring the trap. And then go home to his own entrapment, still hiding his true self and having to listen to his worm of an Uncle Paul (Gabe Fazio) echo the same sentiments as his fellow officers.
It is an exceptionally stressful watch, laying out the horrors of the closet by highlighting someone so beholden to the hetero agenda that his literal day job is to send away people just like himself. But there’s something beautiful about it too. The way that Lucas gradually unfurls as he grows closer to Andrew (and the chemistry between Blyth and Tovey is like a life preserver of radiant warmth against the societal chill surrounding them) not only aligns with the Gay metanarrative of the older generation helping the young through their shared struggle, but the film itself allows empathy for Lucas’ predicament. Survival can be an ugly reality, and it’s only with patience and a full-fisted reach deep within one’s own heart that the strength can be found to step out of those shadows. To be and to be seen.
The underlying message of hope here is not only palpable but has arguably grown in necessity since Plainclothes’ Sundance debut in 2025. The film’s period detail, with its hacky sacks, Walkmans, and OMC’s ‘How Bizarre’, creates a notion that such mistreatment is a thing of the past, something to be looked back on with grim nostalgia. That in turn becomes its own aesthetic of horror, akin to Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, as the realisation hits not just of how recent all of this is, but that it’s still happening. Just look at how busy Amtrak was last year. That signalling of hope, of the importance of being true to one’s self in spite of environmental hostility, feels like a rallying cry that the fear of being seen by those who wish harm cannot, for the sake of one’s own sanity, be the reason to stay hidden. An embodiment of Pride as the antithesis of Shame.
Plainclothes is a bundle of sparking nerve endings cocooning a soft and tender heart. Its visualisation of the psychological damage caused by being closeted on its own would merit high marks, let alone its visceral and honest depiction of the societal forces that are still working to keep those closet doors barred and locked, if not outright incinerated. There’s an aching melancholy to the character arc here, but with just enough hope and light to show that there is still a path through the minefield. It is as brutal in its honesty as it is steadfast in its compassion. Let the Gays pee in peace.
