Love Sucks! and these movies prove it!

WHO BY FIRE (2024)

By Neil Baker

With an opening reminiscent of Kubrick’s The Shining, Who by Fire (Comme le feu) wastes no time throwing you off balance. A car drives along winding mountain roads lined with forests, and three people sit in the rear of the vehicle, their legs lightly touching. As the car continues towards its unknown destination, one lightly and nervously touches the other’s hand, hoping for reciprocation. But it never comes, and the hand moves back to their lap. The person in question is teenage filmmaker Jeff (Noah Parker), who has been invited to attend a getaway at a log cabin retreat by his best friend, Max (Antoine Marchand-Gagnon). The hand he brushed was that of Max’s sister, Aliocha (Aurelia Arandi-Longpre), his secret crush and unrequited teenage love. 

Driving the car is Max’s dad, the once-great screenwriter Albert (Paul Ahmrani), and before long, their destination is clear: a boatplane where the acclaimed director, Blake (Arieh Worthalter), waits to whisk them away to his new life and home in the wilderness. For Jeff, it’s an opportunity to get to know Aliocha and earn her affection while meeting his filmmaking hero, while for Max, it’s a chance to spend time with his best friend. At the same time, for Albert, it is an opportunity to reconnect with the man he once called his best friend and colleague during the height of his screenwriting success. 

However, as they settle into their Canadian paradise, old wounds open around dinner tables packed with food and wine, unrequited love and desire bubble into raging jealousy, and suppressed feelings are uncorked through nervous laughter. Here, in the wilderness, the dinner table is a place of joy, tension, debate, and arguments in a movie that is both a thriller, a coming-of-age tale, a delightfully sharp comedy and an exquisite psychological drama. 

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OH, HI! (2025)

By Neil Baker

The first few months of any new relationship are fun, but also uncertain. The fun often comes from the sex, but the uncertainty that sits behind that sex niggles at you as you wonder whether this is going anywhere once the sex stops.

In director Sophie Brooks’ Oh, Hi!, two young lovers, Iris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman), quickly realise they aren’t on the same page when it comes to their relationship goals after a night trying out some light bondage in a summer rental home. This is their first weekend trip together, and it quickly becomes clear it may be their last as communication falters and Isaac finds himself handcuffed to a bed in perpetuity by his scorned girlfriend.

But how did carnal fun and some energetic experimentation suddenly become a hostage situation? Well, it’s a tale as old as time, as Isaac states, just after sex, that he believes their relationship is casual, fun and open. That’s not what Iris thought! So she intends to keep him handcuffed to the bed until he falls in love with her! Of course, this decision is neither healthy nor appropriate, and as day turns to night and back to day, it’s clear Iris’s kinky method of couples therapy borders on the psychotic. And as for Isaac, it quickly becomes clear that the word “commitment” has long been an alarm bell inside his head. If only they had communicated their feelings before the handcuffs and chains, things could have been so different!

THE FAVOURITE (2018)

By Neil Baker

Wickedly sharp, endlessly entertaining, sultry, sexual and emotionally complex, Yorgos Lanthimos ‘ The Favourite, from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, took the misadventures of Queen Anne as its core inspiration. In Lathimos’ deliciously dark world of court gameplay, one-upmanship, and ridicule, Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) vie for the attention of Olivia Colman’s damaged yet sharp Queen Anne, who behaves like a spoilt child while screaming internally.

But far from a scathing takedown of Queen Anne, her fickle affections and cruelty conceal a deep sense of pain as her body fails and her beauty fades, making The Favourite a complex and emotional portrait of age, power, and the fear of knowing one’s time is almost up.

It is a film about female sexuality, beauty, power, and the fleeting opportunities for success that age brings. Lanthimos joyously dissects gender politics and explores how women are often made to compete against one another for power rather than support one another in dismantling the male-dominated world around them.

THE OUTLAWS (2021)

By Neil Baker

As The Outlaws opens, two men sit in a 1920s Chevrolet, staring through the windshield as the car creaks and moans, its radiator hissing. Blood trickles down the face of the young driver as he looks to his side for what might be the last time, and another young man looks back. Meanwhile, armed police stand just metres before them, waiting to shoot.

The young men in question are Mikeal (Filip Berg) and Johannes (Åsmund Høeg), and their images adorn wanted posters for armed robbery and murder. However, as they look at each other in the car, it’s hard to believe that the youngest, Johannes, could have committed such crimes, his eyes full of tears and his mouth quivering with fear.

Inspired by a true story, writer-director Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken offers us a dream-like exploration of a dangerous love between two drifters in De fredløse. Mikeal is violent but charming, leaving destruction and pain in his wake, while Johannes is desperate to find love and companionship. Dahlsbakken weaves together their journey through a series of flashbacks, slowly building a tapestry of a short but life-changing relationship. It’s clear from the outset that Johannes is attracted to Mikael, but Mikael’s love is far more challenging to unpick.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001)

By Neil Baker

Hedwig has had a tough life, from growing up gay in East Berlin to sleeping in his mother’s oven. However, despite this challenging start, Hedwig has become a force of nature, a singer-songwriter whose band, The Angry Inch, performs in small restaurants and clubs across America, much to the dismay of many local patrons. Hedwig’s songs have found fame, but not, unfortunately, in Hedwig’s hands. Instead, his ex-lover, Tommy Gnosis, uses Hedwig’s material to further his rock star career. But can Hedwig finally achieve success? And can love trump hate and deceit as Hedwig tracks down the boy who stole his heart and material? Celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, Hedwig and the Angry Inch remains one of the finest pop-rock musicals ever produced – its journey from a gay club to a New York stage and finally to the big screen is a unique, fascinating and colourful road trip.

Hedwig began life in the imaginations of the Broadway star John Cameron Mitchell and the composer and songwriter Stephen Trask during a random meeting on a domestic flight. Their fabulous creation was to be rooted in drag culture in New York’s nightlife and in the emergence of a new queer punk rock scene. As they began to form the outline of what would become Hedwig and the Angry Inch, they bravely took their vision to the stage at the gay rock ‘n’ roll, queer punk, and drag venue Squeezebox. It was the perfect place to slowly develop Hedwig’s character as John Cameron Mitchell’s nightly performances began to draw in big crowds, and the story of Hedwig and the Angry Inch became a part of Squeezebox culture. But how do you find the finances to jump from a club to the Broadway stage? Crowdfunding came to the rescue, with Hedwig finally taking to the stage at the Jane Street Theatre, New York, on February 14, 1998.

Hedwig’s dazzling and humorous rock opera would wow crowds and achieve cult status, touring the UK, Canada, Brazil and Germany before the curtain finally fell in 2000. But did that mean Hedwig’s journey was over? Of course not! John Cameron Mitchell was already working with the Sundance Institute on a potential movie.

When Hedwig and the Angry Inch arrived on our screens in 2001, it would be just as wild a ride as it was on stage – a glorious, vibrant and devilishly funny movie that revelled in Hedwig’s Squeezebox birth. John Cameron Mitchell is truly electrifying alongside the original New York cast, and when you add Michael Pitt as the young rock prodigy Tommy Gnosis and Emily Hubley’s animation, Hedwig and the Angry Inch becomes a unique, colourful and vibrant celebration of queer culture. So, what are you waiting for? Pour yourself a drink, get together with friends and visit Hedwig’s wild world.

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GRIFFIN IN SUMMER (2024)

By Neil Baker

Fourteen-year-old Griffin (Everett Blunck), an enthusiastic young playwright who writes Tennessee Williams-inspired melodramas far beyond his tender age, is about to face those very questions as a mysterious young man becomes his every waking thought during a summer when his quiet suburban world suddenly and sharply changes.

Griffin, played brilliantly by Blunck, has always been an outsider. He is a boy with the body of a fourteen-year-old and the mind of a forty-year-old, a driven playwright who yearns for his Broadway debut. He has a small group of friends, Kara (Abby Ryder Fortson), Tyler (Gordon Rocks), Pam (Alivia Bellamy) and Winnie (Johanna Colón), all of whom he regularly treats like shit because while he passionately believes in artistic perfection, they make potato clocks, kiss their boyfriends and attend, what he considers to be, pointless summer camps.

Griffin’s dad is never home and is evidently having an affair, and his loving mum, whom he always refers to as Helen (Melanie Lynskey), has a mind that is clearly and understandably elsewhere. But despite the family problems that clearly act as inspiration for each new play he writes, Griffin believes that this summer is going to be the best yet, as he plans a theatre epic titled “Regrets of Autumn,” a play that will finally get him noticed on Broadway and mark his arrival in the arts world.

However, that’s all about to change when Helen hires bad-boy performance artist Brad (Owen Teague) to do some handy work around the house. Brad is mysterious, toned, volatile, and a bit dangerous. He is an alluring James Dean to Griffin’s Truman Capote, and, to add icing to the cake, he lives in New York and has just come home to make some money. But a first gay crush is always tricky to navigate, especially when trying to put on a play that will shoot you to stardom.

Nicholas Colia’s feature directorial debut weaves the classic gay coming-of-age journey with a heartwarming, honest, and hilarious portrait of a highly strung boy’s first crush, which upends his sense of reality, safety, and security as his hormones take control. There are moments of brilliance as Colia explores the power of that first hormonal rush and the extent to which young people attempt to get what they want without understanding the emotions attached. Whether it’s Griffin quickly working out that whisky might be the route to Brad’s heart by raiding his dad’s liquor cabinet or the moment his young heart sinks when he realises Brad has a girlfriend, only to devise a ruthless way to get rid of her, there is a raw honesty in the lengths Griffin will go to to get his man, even though deep down he knows its a fantasy.

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COMPANION (2025)

By Neil Baker

Iris (Sophie Thatcher) met the man of her dreams, Josh (Jack Quaid), in an empty supermarket, their eyes meeting over the baskets of peaches and oranges. Ever since that day, Iris has devoted herself and everything she is to Josh; he is her world, her everything. Companion opens with that meeting as Iris talks us through the event, explaining how her life found meaning and purpose that day. However, Iris then throws us a curveball, as she says she also felt that feeling of purpose the day she killed Josh! Is Iris a psychopath dressed in pink? Or is Josh a smiling devil whose gentle eyes hide a dark secret?

Drew Hancock doesn’t keep you guessing for long as the couple head to a secluded house in the woods to meet Josh’s friends, Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillén), his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage) and the mysterious Sergey (Rupert Friend). Without giving away any spoilers, Companion is a story of love, lies, logins, liberation and lucidity that proves love sucks in our digital world.

The world that Companion inhabits is one that people like Elon Musk aim to create within the next decade, one where everything is commercialised and controlled by tech bro’s with few moral or ethical boundaries, including our innermost desires for companionship. Of course, many argue that the world is already partly here as we swipe through photos on apps, dismissing any potential suitor who doesn’t fit our idea of perfection. But thankfully, it hasn’t gone as far as it could yet. Drew Hancock’s satirical horror reminds us that if we don’t put the brakes on now, we all know where things are heading!

SLOW WEST (2015)

By Neil Baker

Sometimes, the journeys we take in life are born from innocence, naivety and love, as our young hearts guide us with little understanding of the dangers ahead.

The year is 1870, and Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a vulnerable Scottish teenager in a foreign land, his horse struggling under the weight of his suitcases while his hands nervously hold onto the reins as he passes through the deep and dangerous forests of Colorado. But what has brought Jay to this unforgiving yet hauntingly beautiful frontier? The answer lies with Jay’s sweetheart, Rose (Caren Pistorius), who fled Scotland with her dad (Rory McCann) following a tragic incident. That incident involved Jay, but he won’t let it force them apart; he plans to reunite with his first love, no matter the cost.

It’s not long before the wide-eyed Jay finds his life threatened and saved by the mysterious Silas (Michael Fassbender), who quickly takes Jay under his rugged and torn wing. But is Silas all he appears to be at first? Unlike many Western road movies, Slow West defies its title with a brisk pace and poetic, lyrical air. Maclean focuses his lens on the diverse immigrant communities and individuals who, like Jay, believed that the American frontier would offer hope and freedom but, in reality, found desperation and violence. 

By wrapping the audience in a stunning journey of hope, love, and innocence against a backdrop of melancholy and violence, Maclean creates moments of dream-like wonder and nightmare-like fear as Jay’s vulnerabilities are exposed. Jay’s mission is fatally flawed from the outset by the rose-tinted dreams he holds on to, something Silas understands and uses to further his own hidden mission. The outstanding performances of Smitt-McPhee and Fassbender stand centre stage in a movie that packs an emotional punch as Jay’s foolhardy journey, built on teenage love, slowly crumbles in a world of cruelty, violence, and survival at all costs.

HEATHERS (1988)

By Neil Baker

Despite the critics lapping it up, it’s hard to believe that Michael Lehmann’s pitch-black comedy starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder wasn’t a glowing success with audiences on its limited cinema release in 1989. However, that was to change when it hit video stores and, like so many cult classics, found an eager young fanbase. By the mid-1990s, Heathers was heralded as one of the best teen comedies of the late 1980s; its sharp observational humour was layered with a cutting dissection of high school American culture. Heathers would put a ton of dynamite under the classic 80s teen comedy as it explored the inherent darkness of the adolescent mind in a devilishly brilliant story of division, wealth, privilege and bullying.

Seventeen-year-old Veronica (Winona Ryder) is desperate to belong in the jungle of high school life, and she couldn’t be happier when she is accepted into the alpha mean girls club, Heathers. However, when Veronica meets the mysterious JD (Christian Slater), and the veneer rubs off the Heathers, her high school life takes a deadly detour.

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THE RULES OF ATTRACTION (2002)

By Neil Baker

Roger Ebert called Roger Avary’s film, based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel, “a skillfully made movie about reprehensible people”. I think the word reprehensible is a bit strong. Yes, some characters in this knotty tale of unrequited love, sex, and adolescent desire are indeed reprehensible. Still others are simply trying to navigate the pitfalls of university life with little success.

The Rules of Attraction could be described as American Pie on speed, as we join Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), Paul (Ian Somerhalder), Victor (Kip Pardue) and a host of others at Camden College’s toxic “End of the World” party, before rewinding several months to see how the events opening the movie unfolded in the past. At breakneck speed, we explore our lead characters’ lives, loves, hopes and disappointments before ending where we began.

Many say your University years are the best in your life, and in many ways, they are. However, romantically, they can also be tricky, as newfound independence, sex, alcohol, drugs, and self-discovery merge into one challenging and exciting bubble of hormone-driven decisions. The Rules of Attraction captures that in spades as it explores how sex, attraction and love often sit uncomfortably together, no matter our age!

MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971) 

By Agnes Sajti

Starring Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, Minnie and Moskowitz is one of independent cinema pioneer John Cassavetes‘ least well-known films. Although regarded as a romantic comedy, it is far from the standard Hollywood fare, in which love is often preordained from the beginning, regardless of conflicts or the various forces keeping a couple apart.

The plot centres on Minnie (Rowlands), a museum curator who is in an abusive relationship with a married man, Jim (John Cassavetes). Minnie slowly becomes disillusioned with the very idea of love and shares her concerns with a friend, discussing themes of age and the ever-shrinking chance of finding the right man.

Meanwhile, Moskowitz (Cassel) is an eccentric and discourteous man who works as a parking attendant after moving from New York to Los Angeles. Moskowitz meets Minnie by chance as she is chased out of a restaurant by her blind date, Zelmo (Val Avery). From this point on, the film follows Minnie and Moskowitz through their tumultuous on-and-off relationship and a series of ludicrous and sometimes borderline-insane encounters.

While the plot doesn’t seem to involve much comedy at first glance, it has a deep layer of absurd humour and often feels like a weirdly realistic and “faulty” screwball comedy. Classic screwball comedies like It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940) are notable for emphasising the battle of the sexes through absurd situations and incredibly fast-paced dialogue. Here, we have Moskowitz essentially kidnapping Minnie by forcing her into his car before proclaiming his love for her at a hot dog stand. In the meantime, Minnie seems unresponsive to his affections and even tells him she doesn’t see a future with him. However, she eventually agrees to marry him after he threatens to kill himself!

The film hits its comedic stride in a restaurant scene with Minnie, Moskowitz, and their respective mothers (played by Lady Rowlands and Katherine Cassavetes). Both mums are dubious and hesitant about the couple’s sudden decision to marry: Moskowitz’s mum tells Minnie she could do much better than her “bum” of a son, while Minnie’s mum is genuinely shocked by her soon-to-be son-in-law’s looks and manners.

Compared to the passionate and intense love stories we are used to in other romantic comedies, Cassavetes’s film subverts and satirises the concept of the perfect couple. The characters’ interactions are far more important than the plot, as Cassavetes celebrates flawed, chaotic, complex, and even repulsive characters. His cinéma vérité storytelling style and frequent use of a handheld camera ensure that the film focuses entirely on Minnie and Moskowitz; the result is a far more sincere and authentic journey than that of classic romantic films.

But Minnie and Moskowitz is also a subtly layered and dark film, with the absurd humour and wacky situations hiding a far more cynical portrait of love. Minnie is constantly disrespected and mistreated by the men in her life, her self-worth deteriorating as she steps closer to a complete emotional breakdown. Yet the film has nothing but empathy for its characters, making it one of the most honest and genuine depictions of human relationships ever put on screen.

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ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962)

By Niall Glynn

The 400 Blows is considered a seminal film in the French New Wave movement and one of the greatest films ever made. Exploring the world of Antoine Doinel, a rascal of the highest order — a proto-Bart Simpson, if ever there was one — the film captures the highs and lows (and blows) of the tricky intersection between childhood and adult life.

The finale, in which Doinel escapes the boy’s home of his imprisonment only to run to a beach and realise how truly trapped he is, could have been a fitting end for the character in what is one of the most heartbreaking and iconic endings in world cinema. However, director François Truffaut had the wisdom to know that although these moments of adolescent anguish are brutal and seemingly impossible to reconcile, life goes on whether we like it or not. Therefore, Doinel returned for four sequels, charting the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud’s growth in a way Richard Linklater could only dream of.

Truffaut delivers one of the greatest portrayals of disastrous first love ever committed to celluloid in the first of these sequels, Antoine et Collette. Doinel is now living a seemingly ideal teen life. He has left his tumultuous home and now lives alone in Paris, filling his days with books and music.

A teenager free from parents and school, Doinel lives a true fantasy life; he is almost a precursor to Ferris Bueller. However, this chill way of life comes crashing down when he spots Collette at a music concert. Enchantingly performed by Marie-France Pisier, Collette is the girl of young Antoine’s dreams. Not only does she enjoy all the things absent in Antoine’s life – a loving home life and academic success – but she is also way cooler than he can ever hope to be.

Effortlessly chic and charming, Colette has Antoine’s undivided attention and adoration. Antoine’s desire to be with her leads to bizarre lengths, even moving to an apartment opposite her family home to be closer to her. Despite his best efforts and the hopes of Colette’s parents, who have come to consider Doinel a surrogate son, Colette never reciprocates his feelings. Doinel’s journey may have continued after this, but this was by far his most arduous chapter, surpassing even his later marital woes.

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DEEP END (1970)

By Neil Baker

Life as a teenager is a complex and uncertain journey of thrills, new experiences, uncontrollable desires, fear, and anxiety. It is a time in our lives that most of us, by our forties, would be happy to forget as we look back on the choices we made and the actions we took with a mixture of belly laughs and horror.

Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End long sat on the fringes of cinematic discussion, forgotten, lost and disregarded by critics and the public alike. But in recent years, Deep End has finally earned the praise it deserved as a masterful reflection of just how messy and confusing teenage life can be when desire, lust and jealousy take hold of our adolescent minds and bodies.

Skolimowski’s film is set in and around a public swimming pool, where teenage Mike (John Moulder-Brown), fresh out of school, has just taken a job as an assistant. Here, in the sterile corridors, changing rooms and private cubicles, Deep End quickly lives up to its title as young Mike dives headfirst into desire. The object of Mike’s uncontrollable and urgent lust is an older colleague, Susan (Jane Asher), who toys with Mike’s desires, viewing his puppy love as nothing more than an innocent game. However, all games come with risks, and Mike is naive to the sexual gameplay surrounding him and the outcomes of pursuing Susan to the ends of the Earth, or Soho, at least!

Brave, bold, and utterly of its time, Deep End lurches uncontrollably between comedy, horniness, drama, and anxiety, just like the doe-eyed teen at its heart, offering us a coming-of-age movie that defies labels and reminds us just how horrific first love and first lust can be.

MEET JOE BLACK (1998)

By Neil Baker

Here’s a tricky one. You meet the man of your dreams (hell, anyone’s dreams!) in a coffee shop (Brad Pitt), where you get talking, even though you are already committed to a far duller fellow. As you depart the coffee shop, you know you will never meet this gorgeous young man again. So when this random hunk appears mysteriously at your father’s side, you are taken aback. However, what is even more strange is that he now carries a mysterious air and the emotional wonder of a child.

What you don’t know is that this beautiful stranger is, in fact, death. That’s right, death! Unfortunately, the man you met in the coffee shop didn’t look twice before crossing the road (a fatal mistake). As the man lay dying from multiple injuries, death saw an opportunity for life by stealing the sexy guy’s body, with a mission to experience love for the first time. Susan is unaware that Death (Brad Pitt) has made a secret deal with her father (Anthony Hopkins), which would bring the gorgeous coffee shop boy back to life if Hopkins took his place.

Most sane people would run a mile at this point, but when death looks this pretty, how can you avoid his allure? For Susan, remaining single and moving to a monastery would have undoubtedly been a safer option.

CAGE OF GOLD (1950)

By Neil Baker

“Be careful who you give your heart to” has never been more apt than in Basil Dearden’s 1950 tale of love, lies, secrets and blackmail, Cage of Gold.

Hailing from the famous Ealing Studios in the final five years of Michael Balcon’s ownership, Dearden’s cautionary love triangle thriller carries all the hallmarks of classic crime noir in a knotty tale of deceit, love and tangled choices. Judith (Jean Simmons) is a woman torn between her doctor boyfriend, Alan (James Donald), and a former boyfriend, Bill (David Farrar), who mistreated her but whose unexpected reappearance triggers unresolved feelings of attraction.

The moment Judith meets Bill again, a long-simmering spark of love and lust rekindles, and we, the audience, shout “run” at the screen, hoping that Judith stays with the gentle, loving, and sincere Alan. But Judith chooses the champagne-loving ex-air force bad boy who lavishes her with gifts and quickly and quietly marries the now pregnant Judith, much to the concern of those around her. It’s clear Judith is blinded by love, and even when snippets of Bill’s past surface and she questions where his money comes from, she remains loyal. But it’s not long before Bill’s true intentions, his secretive lifestyle, and dastardly motives become apparent, and Judith and Alan are pulled into a wicked game of cat and mouse that could have been avoided if Judith had stayed with Alan in the first place.

Also starring Herbert Lom, Madeleine Lebeau, Bernard Lee, and Harcourt Williams, Dearden’s atmospheric mix of the classic love triangle and crime noir has long been relegated to the sidelines of Ealing Studio’s history and Dearden’s catalogue of work, but if there’s one movie that proves love can suck based on the choices we make, it’s this one.

MANNEQUIN (1987)

By Neil Baker

Do you ever watch an ’80s movie and wonder, “How did this ever reach cinemas?” Mannequin is one of those movies that, despite its age, still has something that keeps people coming back thirty-five years later. Is it the soundtrack? Andrew McCarthy’s boyish charm? Or is it Kim Cattrall’s beauty? In my opinion, what continues to pull people back to Mannequin is the utterly ridiculous yet strangely intriguing premise of its screenplay. Mannequin is so bad, it’s good!

This is the story of a struggling artist (McCarthy) who has more than a passing love for shop mannequins. Each to his own, of course. When a mannequin magically comes to life, this struggling artist finds his creative voice and, in the process, saves Timpkin’s Department Store from closure. However, the mannequin is far more than a magic hunk of plastic; she is an ancient Egyptian goddess with a soft spot for 80s culture, boys in tailored trousers and lavish shop window displays.

Director Michael Gottlieb clearly intended to offer audiences a modern take on the legend of Pygmalion (from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) and the 1948 movie One Touch of Venus. But instead, we ended up with a very 80s romantic comedy that appears to have been written on the back of a cigarette packet. However, Gottlieb also gave us a supporting lead who was black, gay and not dying of AIDS; a bold move in 1987, even if the stereotypes attached are now dated. At its heart, Mannequin is a film about sexuality, desire and a plastic fetish, and that’s a damn rare thing outside of the horror genre.

BABYGIRL (2024)

By Neil Baker

Romy (Nicole Kidman) has it all; she is the CEO of her own company, has a family she loves, and has a husband (Antonio Banderas) who treats her like a queen. But under the surface, her suppressed desires are reaching a boiling point, and an opportunity to finally explore the fantasies she has kept locked away for so long is about to come knocking as a new intern at her company, Samuel (Harris Dickinson), opens a door that can never again be shut.

Romy may be in control of everything in her life, but what she craves in secret is to be controlled, to be a “Babygirl” to a dominant man who makes the rules in the bedroom and follows her instructions outside of it. She wants to be treated as a pet in a game of subservience and domination, yet equally intends to retain her sense of power outside of the bedroom. Samuel sees Romy’s innermost fantasies from the first meeting because he shares them.

Samuel wants to be an alpha male in the bedroom to a powerful woman. He wants to play with the power dynamics inherent in every office across the land, and unlike Romy, he isn’t going to suppress the desires he wants to explore.

Babygirl never passes judgment, as it asks the audience to question the messy feelings of shame that sit behind many long-suppressed desires. It is the story of a young man keen to play out his deepest fantasies in the company of an older woman who has never explored the full spectrum of her sexuality. The age gap between them is ultimately irrelevant in their brief union. Yet, power dynamics, position, and place are far trickier to navigate in a game that both frees and entraps during an uneasy yet intoxicating sexual rebirth.   

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DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)

By Neil Baker

Based on the real-life bank robbery carried out by John Wojtowicz to pay for his partner’s gender-affirming surgery, Dog Day Afternoon is celebrated for Sidney Lumet’s gritty direction and a bravura performance from Al Pacino. However, the film is also pioneering and complex in its depiction of queer relationships and the fear of difference in a city consumed by crime.

Dog Day Afternoon is far more than another ’70s heist movie. It’s a stinging portrait of the failed American Dream, a city melting under the heat of its failed politics, and a Vietnam veteran (Al Pacino) just trying to find a way to support his transgender partner (in an era long before ‘transgender’ was even a word).

What opens as a darkly engaging farce of the highest order quickly becomes a tragedy as we realise there is no happy ending for Sonny (Pacino) or his hapless partner in crime, Sal (John Cazale). From the moment they enter the bank, their time is up, no matter how they shake the dice.

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LOVE AND MONSTERS (2020)

By Neil Baker

Love and Monsters was yet another movie denied a cinema release due to COVID, and more’s the pity, because it deserved a big-screen release rather than a decidedly quiet arrival on Netflix. Michael Matthews’ delightful post-apocalyptic adventure, starring Dylan O’Brien, was packed full of B-movie charm while embracing a family-friendly, Spielberg-esque tone, making it a perfect monster-sized treat.

As an asteroid named Agatha 616 hurtled towards the Earth, scientists did exactly what we would expect them to do: they blew it up with multiple rockets. However, the chemical compounds in the missiles fell back to Earth, turning the animal kingdom on its head and enlarging every insect, bug, crustacean, and lizard to monster size. The result would place humans at the bottom of the food chain, as they became lunch for every creature that got a shoe in the face or was devoured on a dinner plate. As a result, 95% of the world’s population was wiped out, leaving small bands of survivors in secluded underground bunkers.

For our narrator and unlikely hero, Joel (O’Brien), the disaster came just as he had found love with Aimee (Jessica Henwick); I told you that love sucked! In the seven years since his mum, dad, and friends were either squashed or eaten, Joel has dreamed of reuniting with Aimee from the underground bunker he calls home. The trouble is, Joel isn’t exactly a bug-killing hero, and Aimee is eighty-five miles away in a different colony on the coast. After a giant ant breaches his settlement, killing one of the survivors, Joel decides to set off on a quest to reunite with Aimee, meeting new friends along the way, including an intelligent dog called ‘Boy’. But can Joel survive on the outside in a new world where he is just a tasty lunchtime snack? And is his quest based on an idea of love that no longer exists?

Michael Matthews’ movie is a visual and auditory delight, mixing elements of the classic road trip with Ray Harryhausen-inspired monster horror. The narrative conveys profound eco-messages, from our treatment of the natural world around us to our capacity to coexist harmoniously with the diverse array of creatures that inhabit it. While there is a predictability to our hero’s journey, Dylan O’Brien keeps things fast-paced, humorous, energetic, and thoroughly engaging throughout.

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (2018)

By Neil Baker

Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a 30-something slacker living alone in an apartment he cannot afford. Sam’s days are spent looking for no-strings sex, chain-smoking and reading comics as he tries to dodge the landlord at every opportunity. His very existence is one of habit and repetition as he watches the city around him consume everyone it invites into its circus.

One afternoon, as Sam sits spying on the neighbours, he is fascinated by an attractive newcomer in the communal swimming pool, the mysterious Sarah (Riley Keough). But just as Sam gets close to Sarah in a haze of weed, she vanishes, and her apartment is cleared overnight, almost as if she never existed. Offering us a love letter to Hitchcock, Lynch and Kubrick, director David Robert Mitchell takes us down a rabbit hole of desire, uncertainty, and intrigue as Sam desperately seeks understanding and closure.

THE LOVED ONES (2009)

By Neil Baker

Do you remember those innocent school days, when we made out behind the bike sheds? The Loved Ones is about to pour petrol over those memories before devilishly dancing around the roaring fire. If there’s one film on this list that will have you thanking the heavens for your single life, it’s this one. This gruesome Aussie tale of sexual obsession, psycho parents and forced lobotomies will have you regurgitating your heart-shaped chocolates.

Sean Byrne’s movie is a relatively unknown and deliciously twisted horror gem where the high school prom is unceremoniously turned on its head in a whirlwind of gore, drills and cerebral trauma. The quiet, outcast and edgy Lola Stone is determined to find her perfect prom date and has her eyes set on grungy Brent (Xavier Samuel). However, this is going to be a date like no other, with the whole family invited to a celebration of ropes, nails, drills, and paper hats.

DINNER IN AMERICA (2020)

By Neil Baker

Kyle Gallner plays a reckless punk, and Emily Skeggs a socially awkward misfit – an unlikely pair of young lovers in the perfect rom-com for the 21st century. Dinner in America is rude, crude, totally off the rails, yet incredibly heartwarming.

Simon (Gallner) is a rebellious punk rocker who doesn’t fit in small-town Midwest America. At the same time, Patty (Skeggs) is a super-fan of a local punk band, for which Simon provides lead vocals. However, Simon’s identity is kept hidden. Initially, Patty has no idea who he is, and he doesn’t know that it’s Patty who has been sending him dirty pictures and strongly worded love letters.

Adam Rehmeier joyously dissects modern America, the nuclear family, the bland monotony of suburbia, and the all-American dream in a richly dark, delightfully delicious, offbeat punk rock comedy/drama. Held aloft by the exquisite performances of Gallner and Skeggs, Dinner in America proves that love often sucks, but it can equally be one hell of a ride when coupled with freedom, risk and a sense of forbidden adventure.