Vague Visages’ Lady Like review contains minor spoilers. Luke Willis’ 2024 documentary features Lady Camden and Nina West. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

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Seasoned fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race know that maintaining longevity after the show is a volatile and exhausting endeavor for the subjects. Unsurprisingly, there are few winners in this rouse, with most succumbing to the airtime “villain edit” or the cruel reality of the program’s Marvel-like output. Through an authentic and nurtured friendship with Lady Camden — aka Rex Wheeler — documentarian Luke Willis cultivates a light at the end of the tunnel in his debut feature Lady Like.

Playfully experimenting with form, style and content matter, Lady Like brings the RuPaul’s Drag Race conversation back to where it needs to be, with the documentary separating itself from the reality show’s homogenized lens on the art form. Over a series of months, viewers follow Rex’s journey before, during and after RuPaul’s Drag Race, needing to deftly adapt to his growing prominence and fame. Unlike other behind the scenes peeks that tend to focus on the past, Rex’s promise and ideas are tied up in the future, with Willis’ reassurance behind the camera allowing dreams to become a reality. 

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As Lady Camden soars to international fame, Willis’ clearly familiar rapport with Rex allow the subject to both open up and completely break down. Objectively, it’s the first time audiences see the direct consequences of the highly anticipated “villain edit,” with Rex completely preoccupied with the what-ifs of each unfolding episode. Lady Like presents a rare chance to create a fresh dialogue beyond Twitter/X spats and cryptic Instagram stories, forcing fans to reflect on their part in inciting a reality culture that’s neither healthy nor sustainable.

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At the same time, Lady Like subconsciously re-reminds fans that drag fully thrives outside the confines of Gen Z beauty, death drops and high-quality fashion. Rex’s first love is ballet, and he uses drag as a vehicle for what he can offer beyond the aesthetic value. Not only is this reflected in the film’s substance — Lady Camden’s journey is serialized through animation, fictitious retellings and RuPaul’s Drag Race itself, alongside more traditional components of a documentary — but it also peppers the parting note as Rex envisages his identity beyond what the show has provided.

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A unique sense of intimacy arguably makes Lady Like the strongest of all the RuPaul’s Drag Race documentaries produced so far, but that doesn’t mean it is flawless in the wider medium. Much like Rex stews and simmers in his own anxiety, the feature is fleetingly bloated by circling around questions that have already been asked. There’s a brooding pace to Lady Like, never quite cutting straight through the meat of Rex’s plight, instead choosing to philosophize what has been branded as “trash TV.”

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It’s possible that Lady Like has graced the documentary scene too soon. With only two seasons passing since Lady Camden’s stint in RuPaul’s Drag Race, arguably not enough time has passed to appreciate Rex’s conflicted fight against the well-oiled machine that is reality TV. Potentially struggling to be remembered while not completely fading into year-after-year obscurity, Lady Camden might not be the perfect vessel for necessary conversations about RuPaul’s Drag Race, but she certainly advocates for a more empathetic approach.

Jasmine Valentine (@thejasvalentine) is the editor-in-chief of FILMHOUNDS Magazine and a TV/Movies writer at Dexerto. She has previously written for Total Film, Little White Lies and The Daily Beast.

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