What to watch: Solo
Love and loss on the drag scene of Montreal.
Written and directed by Sophie Dupuis, Solo gives us the story of Simon (Théodore Pellerin).
Simon's creative outlet is his performances at a local drag bar. When Olivier (Félix Maritaud) joins the cast, they embark on a tempetuous romance. At the same time, Simon's mother - a famous opera singer - returns to Montreal for a major performance. Simon idolises his mother and seeks to re-establish their connection. But Simon is soon confronted by the harsh truth that our ideals of love and relationships rarely match up to the reality of the flawed humanity of the people we care for.
This is an engaging and watchable film.
Dupuis's storytelling is measured and understated. She doesn't tell us what her characters are feeling, she lets them show us. As the narrative unfolds, it's never entirely clear how the choices being made by the characters will play out but we're sufficiently invested that it holds our attention.
Théodore Pellerin brings an authentic sensitivity to Simon. It's also interesting to see Félix Maritaud tackling a type of role that we really haven't seen from him before.
Either the toxic relationship that Simon experiences with Olivier or the distant relationship that he experiences with his emotionally unavailable mother could have been the story in and of itself, but Dupuis uses them to provide depth and context to the person that Simon becomes.
It's intelligent filmmaking.
Solo is distributed by Peccadillo Pictures
The NSFW edition
If you want to admire some man-on-man action, our NSFW edition gives you every inch.
Sign in and check out our NSFW content - it's free!
Gaydar
