Building the New Queer Canon is a monthly column exploring a new or rediscovered LGBTQIA+ film, and whether it deserves inclusion in an ever-growing “canon” of queer cinema. VV’s Plainclothes essay contains spoilers. Carmen Emmi’s 2025 film features Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey and Maria Dizzia. Check out more movie coverage in the film essays section.

Public bathrooms have always been central to moral panics about the lives of minority demographics. Long before right-wing culture wars decided to designate trans people using the restrooms of their chosen gender as the primary sign of society’s downfall, that same ire had long been focused on people of color through segregated bathrooms, as well as gay and bisexual men through Draconian laws dating back to the late 19th century. However, it wasn’t until the mid 20th century civil rights movement when toilets became an especially hot button issue directly concerning queer men, with new moral panics forged by the religious right in the United States designed to drown out a burgeoning movement calling for equal homosexual rights. Soon, there were plainclothes police operatives monitoring public toilets associated with cruising, and public information campaigns which aimed to equate the menace of openly gay men with pedophiles, ready to lure children away and convert them to a life of sin.

This stigma carried through the first decade of the AIDS pandemic into the 1990s, where more positive mainstream representations of LGBTQ folk were contrasted with further political steps backward, such as Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, designed to keep military personnel in the closet and discharging those who came out. Although relegated to one specific industry, its stigma could be felt even in comparatively progressive industries like the world of entertainment –– and the topic du jour quickly became bathrooms once again after English musician George Michael was effectively outed in the press when arrested at a Beverly Hills cruising spot. Quickly realizing that he had no reason to feel shame, the former member of Wham! swiftly recorded the satirical hit “Outside,” complete with a groundbreaking music video flipping the bird at prudish notions of sexuality. Several years later, Michael would say that he wanted to remove the stigma which surrounded a major part of gay social life. Although a chart-topper internationally, “Outside” barely charted in America when released in the fall of 1998, despite the controversy surrounding it. But to my eyes, the music video still feels like a critical water cooler moment to consider before grappling with the cultural context established in Plainclothes, Carmen Emmi’s directorial debut which takes place a year before the release of  “Outside” in upstate New York.

Plainclothes Essay: Related — Building the New Queer Canon #1: Isao Fujisawa’s ‘Bye Bye Love (Baibai Rabu)’

In Plainclothes, Tom Blyth stars as Lucas, a young undercover officer whose sole responsibility appears to be entrapping queer men in shopping mall toilets and arresting them for public indecency before they even have a chance to act on it. It’s surreal just how much police time is devoted to this practice, with the protagonist also being responsible for training the detective who will imminently replace him. Now, there are worries that Lucas will be too recognizable within the local gay community, so a lot of taxpayer money is wasted as the characters sit around in food courts, on the off chance a man might lure them into a stall and flash them. Lucas is, of course, grappling with his own sexuality during this process, but he never takes the extra step to act on it until meeting Andrew (Russell Tovey), an older man he is immediately infatuated with. However, this instant obsession doesn’t progress as a sexually charged cat-and-mouse thriller between two sides of the law, or anything approaching a familiar coming out narrative. Instead, Plainclothes focuses on the way the main players develop a sex life within the margins of polite society. Even though Emmi presents this not-quite-romance from the perspective of a naive young man having his affections reciprocated for the first time, the film isn’t about an eventual heartbreak so much as the restrictions within their lives that make one inevitable.

Plainclothes Essay: Related — Building the New Queer Canon #2: Bruce LaBruce’s ‘The Visitor’

Plainclothes’ suggestion that the real perverts are the ones quite literally policing a private space is hardly a novel idea, but it is a welcome reminder at a time when this has re-emerged as a hot button issue. In Emmi’s film, the detectives running the sting operation go as far as to set up a covert recording booth hidden within a public bathroom, heightening Lucas’ anxiety about being outed, but also deepening the fact the police have to create evidence of their own for “crimes” which take place away from the public’s prying eyes. This is the logical thematic conclusion for Emmi’s aesthetic approach, frequently crosscutting between traditional cinematography and grainy, era-appropriate video cameras, and re-contextualizing each scene from a voyeuristic perspective with simple quick cuts. One could convincingly argue that this is a one-note trick, as the technique never develops alongside the drama, but it doesn’t need to. These camcorder shots can articulate everything from the illicit nature of being watched to the paranoia that comes with the overbearing worry of being outed, and without belaboring the point too much.

Plainclothes Essay: Related — Building the New Queer Canon #3: Olmo Schnabel’s ‘Pet Shop Days’

When Plainclothes skews closer to a conventional relationship drama during its middle stretch, the expected beats of a meet-cute come into direct conflict with a culture whose rules won’t even let Lucas and Andrew meet innocently. Emmi doesn’t shy away from depicting sex but finds far more of an erotic charge just through the anxiety and ecstasy of negotiating an initial connection, before the practicalities of a hook-up are even brought to the table. Lucas and Andrew’s first proper meeting is at a movie theater, sneaking their way into a disused projection space they quickly must flee for causing too much noise. The stakes of being caught are always at the forefront of the action, and while the writer-director doesn’t make viewers forget the potential repercussions, he equally understands that, within the moment, this heightened tension can only add to the turn-on rather than repel audiences from it.

Plainclothes Essay: Related — Building the New Queer Canon #4: Louise Weard’s ‘Castration Movie’

However, Plainclothes isn’t necessarily a kinky film —  it just does better than most tales of life in the closet to explain why this can be more alluring than coming out and finding somewhere to make these connections in the open. That Emmi finds even a glimmer of eroticism within a still-relevant political commentary on the policing of queer private lives by the surveillance state is commendable, and it’s northing short of miraculous that the writer-director never feels the urge to water that aspect down for the sake of respectability in the eyes of cishet viewers.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) is a film and TV critic based in Manchester, England. By day, he interviews the great and the good of the film world for Zavvi, and by night, he criticizes their work as a regular reviewer at outlets including The Film Stage and Looper. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

Plainclothes Essay: Related — Building the New Queer Canon #5: Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex/Dreams/Love Trilogy