The art of cruising has evolved with the creation of hook up and dating apps. Some would even argue that catching eyes with a stranger and finding a secluded place for some public play is gasping its last, poppers-induced breath. The danger is sexy, but it’s difficult to capture that intensity. In his directorial debut, Carmen Emmi’s Plainclothes reminds us of how the desperate hunt for pleasure could lead to the downfall of your reputation or identity while featuring cracked-open performance from Tom Blyth.
Blyth’s Lucas wears a baseball cap tightly on his head as he hangs out in a food court as shoppers walk by. He’s alone and waiting when he catches eyes with a young man heading down a hallway to a secluded set of restrooms. It’s the shared look of understanding and a buzzy, anticipatory feeling that lift Lucas from his chair as he follows him to this sequestered area. If someone else saw their glances, they wouldn’t think anything of it, but this unattended meeting place serves as the setting for a quick, rushed hook up. That is until Lucas abruptly leaves the encounter and his partner, another seemingly nonchalant mall patron, goes in for the arrest.
The more and more Lucas participates in this entrapment, though, the more it begins to weight on him, because he is suffering from inside the closet. It’s almost as if we can see him standing in a dark room and light is invading his claustrophobic space through a crack in the door. Set in 1997, Plainclothes is drenched in AIDS hysteria that lives in the prejudiced and homophobic remarks from his colleagues and superiors, and he accepts those words because he is, after all, hiding from himself. “Find and prosecute these perverts,” his lieutenant instructs him. Lucas breaks his own rules, however, when Russell Tovey’s Andrew becomes the next target. He steps into the restroom’s stall during their meeting, a guideline that Lucas keeps to avoid being implicated in addition to never talking to a suspect of exposing himself.
Emmi employs a startling visual technique throughout the film as Lucas and Andrew becomes more involved. The camera will switch to a grainy, videotape quality to show Lucas’ perspective as he deals with his feelings or encounters with his family. Sometimes it will linger for longer sections but sometimes it comes in flashes. Some audiences from Sundance have curiously criticized the method, but it roots us into such a time and place that I can’t help but adore it. Will Lucas remember these encounters like normal memories or will they be unearthed later like watching remnants of home movies found on a video cassette?
Blyth is incredible as a man both trying to make a name for himself as a young officer but also hiding in the shadows from himself. His face mutates from lovelorn confusion to a harder, more expected masculinity that queer people will subconsciously understand. After a moment of passion, he rests his head on top of Tovey’s chest, and it hints at how queer people can feel their most comfortable when they are physically close to a relative stranger. When Emmi zooms in for passion, he hones in on the details that one will remember from an unrequited, steamy hookup that will get them through until it can happen again: fingers on a zipper or Tovey’s piercing blue eyes. Lucas kisses Andrew with a mixture of hunger and fear.
Plainclothes is engrossing, sexy, and dangerous. As we enter a time where queer people are unsure how they will be treated, Emmi’s film serves as a cautionary tale or time capsule of when pleasure and sex were aligned with alarm and distress.
Plainclothes is awaiting acquisition.
