TWhen garage mechanic Luke (Ben Hardy) first meets drag artist Aisha (Jason Patel), the world seems a little brighter. Luke is a straight single father, plodding through life in a depressing shade of grey until he stumbles into an underground “gay cabaret club.” Even his sex life is monotonous, consisting of perfunctory, no-frills struggles with indifferent women in remote corners of the wilderness. But when he’s around Aisha, the screen explodes with color.
It’s an exciting visual leap that brings a touch of magic to this story set in London, Essex and Manchester. It’s the latest from Sally El Hossaini, who worked with longtime collaborator James Krishna Freud ( my brother devilwho also wrote the film’s screenplay. There are characters with real-world problems here — Luke struggles with his boisterous son, Aisha lives a double life, hiding her sexual orientation from her loving but conservative Muslim family — but there’s a sparkling fairy-tale romanticism that softens the story’s harsher aspects.
Their initial spark suddenly fades when Luke belatedly realizes that the stunning person who charmed him with a wink during their dance routine on their first meeting isn’t who he thought she was. But then Aisha hires Luke as her driver, and the attraction between them is rekindled. Excellent central performances anchor the story. Patel’s physicality alternates between Aisha’s strength and charm and Ashik’s tenderness, who hides his gayness beneath the wigs and glitter. Ashik is the sensitive son of a strict father and a loving mother. And Hardy is fantastic, his face full of conflicting emotions that Luke doesn’t have the words to express.