PLAINCLOTHES (no distrib): A coming-out story laced with paranoia. It’s 1997 in upstate New York, and the cops are running undercover operations in public restrooms to lead gay men into indecent exposure charges. For Lucas (Tom Blyth), this is a particularly difficult assignment, because his own desires are deeply in the closet, not just from the rest of the squad but from his traditionalist family. One day, though, the designated target is Andrew (Russell Tovey), and Lucas can’t do his job, instead arranging for the first assignation of his life. The decision to act on his sexuality frees and terrifies him, and filmmaker Carmen Emmi conveys the latter with a barrage of techniques (not to mention excerpts from The Conversation, the reigning classic of paranoia). Emmi fiddles with the aspect ratio, intercuts 1990’s-quality VHS footage with film, and jumbles the chronology without clear signposts as to where we are in time. All of this certainly gives us insight to the churning emotions Lucas is feeling, and helps us understand some of his increasingly desperate moves–but sometimes at the cost of clarity. Blyth makes Lucas’s tangle of dreams and fears gripping, and Tovey provides a strong, steadying presence as an older gay man who understands what Lucas is going through but has his own issues. Maria Dizzia also has some moving moments as Lucas’s mother, although some of the other relatives are a bit ethnically over the top. Plainclothes is delivering a narrative we’ve seen before in one way or another, and it’s rough around the edges. It does, however, tell its story with force.
BUNNYLOVR (no distrib): Rebecca (writer/director Katarina Zhu) is a cam girl, who flirts with a gallery of men online for tokens while in a state of semi-undress. That alone won’t pay the bills, so she also has a day job working for a businessman, and she poses for her artist friend Bella (Rachel Sennott in a different, funnier and perhaps more entertaining movie). Her life becomes more intense with the arrival of two men: the return of her long-lost gambler father William (Perry Yung), a fun but unreliable figure, and John (Austin Amelio), an aggressive internet client who pays extra for private sessions that are both seductive and disturbing. Rebecca is drawn to John–and she needs the money–but she’s aware that the blankness of the web means that may not be at all what he tells her he is. When he gifts her with a perfect white bunny, it becomes a vehicle for exploring what he wants and what she’s willing to do. Bunnylovr is only occasionally sexual (Rebecca also has an on-and-off ex, Carter played by Jack Kilmer) and in 2025 style even when it is, it’s almost never explicit, yet at times it can dig into the relationship between attraction and repulsion, desire and rage. Mostly, though, it’s a drifting story about drifting, with a low-fi Brooklyn aesthetic that’s familiar from other indie debuts. It must have taken years of effort to get Bunnylovr made, and still the result feels inessential.
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