Théodore Pellerin and Félix Maritaud in a Dangerous Romance

Taking part in Simon, a profitable make-up artist by day and rising drag star by night time, lipsynching to Abba and Donna Summer time with willowy old-school glamour and extra hair-tossing than Charlie’s Angels, Théodore Pellerin is a charming presence, alive with uncooked feeling. It’s too dangerous writer-director Sophie Dupuis’ script retains undermining the character’s dignity by making him a throwback to the portraits of queer miserabilism we hoped have been behind us. However even when some viewers may develop impatient with Simon’s passivity within the face of limitless microaggressions, there’s sufficient tenderness, coronary heart and supreme self-realization in Solo to maintain you watching.

Québécois filmmaker Dupuis’ third characteristic — and her third to star Pellerin, whose U.S. work features a key supporting position in By no means Hardly ever Typically All the time — advantages tremendously from its immersion in Montreal’s drag scene. The movie channels the spirited vitality of a milieu during which solidarity and bitchy banter go hand in hand. The efficiency interludes are particularly invigorating, with DP Mathieu Laverdière’s digicam whirling across the artistes as they amp up the perspective and strut across the tiny stage for an viewers of adoring followers.

Along with the camaraderie of his drag sisters, Simon can depend on the nice and cozy help of his father (Roger Léger) and stepmother (Josée Deschênes), plus a detailed relationship — described as “symbiotic” by an outsider — together with his sister Maude (Alice Moreault), a theatrical costume designer who lovingly whips up Simon’s gauzy robes. Lack of acceptance is just not a difficulty in his life.

However bother intrudes when a brand new French queen on the membership roster, Olivier (Félix Maritaud), who straddles the masc/femme divide whereas performing as La Dragona, catches Simon’s eye. Dupuis properly tracks the spiraling intoxication of their fast-blooming relationship — the attractive intrigue of their preliminary exchanged glances, the extra open flirtation as they get excessive collectively on MDMA after a present, their first kiss within the alley exterior underneath a dusting of snow.

Olivier is evasive about his causes for coming to Canada, saying solely that he wanted a change of scene and a spot to be “nameless.” Simon doesn’t press him for particulars, as an alternative eagerly agreeing to work on a duet for them to carry out on the membership. His pleasure at discovering each a romantic and inventive associate kicks up one other notch when his father reveals that Simon’s mom Claire (Anne-Marie Cadieux), a celebrated opera diva, is coming to Montreal to carry out and needs to have supper together with her kids.

Simon is thrilled on the information — as is starstruck Olivier — however Maude has no real interest in seeing their mom, who ran off to Europe as her profession was in ascent and has just about ignored them ever since.

Within the meantime, Olivier begins to point out indicators of being aloof and controlling. He makes Maude instantly really feel like an outsider and informs Simon that he wants to regulate to his edgier efficiency aesthetic relatively than discover a center floor.

Simon is deeply damage when Olivier hooks up with one other performer, Édouard (Vlad Alexis). However Olivier dismisses Simon’s “petty drama,” making him really feel just like the one who has to apologize. In a later scene, Olivier is enraged when Simon steals the highlight throughout a duet, retaliating by driving a wedge between him and his “drag mom,” Frida (Jean Marchand).

It’s apparent to everybody watching that any try at a severe relationship with Olivier can be poisonous, which makes it irritating that good, self-possessed Simon takes so lengthy to face up for himself and demand respect, even then doing so with tearful pleading. The limitless lodging he’s prepared to make for Olivier’s selfishness are echoed in the best way he hides his damage behind a smile when Claire comes into the image, allocating him solely no matter restricted time her busy schedule permits.

To make issues worse, Olivier cozies as much as Claire with obsequious flattery and name-dropping, making Simon really feel extra shut out even of his mom’s life. A bitter quarrel with Maude simply provides to his isolation. By the point Olivier informs him they are going to be reverting to solo numbers, Simon’s confidence is so shaken that he humiliates himself publicly, performing what ought to have been a triumphant homage to his mom.

Story-wise, Solo is a bit skinny, however the vulnerability and sweetness of Pellerin’s efficiency retains you in Simon’s nook — even his affectations, like sprinkling his conversations with random phrases in English, are endearing — regardless of his lack of armor getting just a little exasperating.

Maritaud, who got here to prominence in Robin Campillo’s AIDS activism drama 120 Beats Per Minute and delivered an astonishing flip in one other current French queer standout, Sauvage, performs the dangerous boy with a canny steadiness of appeal and coldness. Cadieux provides emotionally withholding Claire adequate shading to point out glimpses of her maternal emotions. And Moreault is affecting because the one individual all the time searching for her brother.

Regardless of its intermittent similarities to dated dramas about unhappy homosexual guys craving to be beloved, Solo clearly comes from a spot of genuine feeling, with characters that by no means ring false. Its trajectory follows Simon in his descent to all-time low, from the place he’s lastly capable of acknowledge his unhealthy sample of co-dependent relationships and emerge resplendent as his personal individual, aptly accompanied by a tune known as “Queen.”