Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Sophie Dupuis
Starring: Théodore Pellerin, Félix Maritaud, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Jean Marchand
You'd think that with inheriting economic instability, a challenging job market, and absurdist housing costs, Gen Z would have enough to worry about. Mental health issues define the Zoomer demographic, with the aforementioned fiscal uncertainty, Coronavirus legacy and the rise of social media and smartphones theorised as key causations. As someone who Works With Young People I reckon it's those last factors which have catalysed Gen Z's malaise, and ensuing narcissism. They've never not known the hyperreal screens and stages of digital platforms, with all the attendant hyperbole and performative dynamic using social media entails. It's a chestnut that only the loudest and most exaggerated voices are noticed upon platforms entirely predicated upon users being seen and validated, fostering a system which engenders solipsism. It is an act of supreme egotism, after all, to share an opinion, observation or outcry and expect virtual strangers to give a shit, let alone a like (that said, thanks for reading my review, etc), and this lot have grown up in a world which has normalised the transaction. No wonder they believe it revolves around them, and that their maladies are matters of vital urgency. It's an omphaloskepsis which leads to a pathologizing of natural feelings and a dramatization of everyday concerns; which the user amplifies simply because it is happening to them. Like the eponymous mythical Greek dreamboat, they have fallen into the reflective surface, and drown within the replications.
Hark at Simon (Théodore Pellerin), beautiful and in his early twenties, the lead character of Sophie Dupuis' Solo and star of a drag cabaret in a Montreal that has never seemed more blissfully gay. Simon has a loving sister who designs his absolutely fucking incredible outfits (irl put together by Cédric Quenneville), a father who accepts and loves him, and a new boyfriend (Olivier, Félix Maritaud) who shares Simon's pulchritudinous mien (it was itching me who Pellerin reminded me of, and I just realised that he looks like a young Stuart Price, the electro-genius. Another string to Simon's bow there: he could probably get into the best clubs for free if the bouncer squinted).
We open in flamboyant glory; a plugged-in utopia of lilac and azure lighting, wherein the camera gazes up at Simon's act Glory Gore, snatched and dressed to slay as ABBA's fourth best song soundtracks the space with its insistent, perfumed melodies. We crosscut to flash forwards of Simon as Simon, voguing and goofing off with his (all annoyingly gorgeous) dancefloor pals, before cutting back to Glory Gore owning the stage. Who couldn't love such a sybaritic and idealised celebration of gay culture (when tedious pricks query why there isn’t a "straight" pride, I always wonder what such an event would actually look like...)?. When we go backstage there is a delightfully reassuring presentation of gay camaraderie, the found family which so many never locate. The next day, Simon sits at the breakfast table, scrolling a visual digest of the evening which looks like it was shot by Cass Bird.
What could possibly trouble this extremely fortunate young man? Well, Simon's mother (Anne-Marie Cadieux), a driven narcissist, left the family when he was young in order to pursue her now blossoming career as a mezzo-soprano. Sister Maude (Alice Moreault) wants nothing to do with her, but as a gay of course Simon wants the validation of his diva mother who is an actual opera singer. It also turns out that Olivier, who Simon hooked up with on a dance floor while both were on street drug MDMA and who Simon has only been with for a couple of weeks, is reluctant to enter into an exclusive relationship, the terms of which dictated by Simon. No one tell Robert McKee: as inciting incidents neither of these problems are especially devastating narrative obstacles.
This is the delicious dichotomy which Dupuis constructs, however. Solo is at once a colourful celebration of the culture, but also a sly depiction of a certain sort of young gay man who is addicted to both himself, and The Drama. While self-importance certainly isn't a trait exclusive to Gen Z or homosexuals, there can be a tendency to overdo it: camp, after all, embiggens everything; all has extra meaning, and life is rendered at once deeply serious but also completely absurd. As if to punctuate the point, in between sequences of Simon moping - and falling out with Olivier, his sister, the other queens - Dupuis stages superb club sequences, with the boys (one drag act is called Felina Kyle: iconic) performing to Charles Lavoie's pulsy score and curated needle drops (the soundtrack is excellent and appropriately amazing: I still laugh at the leather lads in Cruising listening to Willy DeVille). In this film which features recurring motifs of mirrors, Dupuis seems interested in notions of performance, both on stage and off.
When the party metaphorically stops in the third act, there is a danger that Solo may sashay into Poor Gays territory, but the screenplay keeps such hackneyed representations at bay via the characters' continued exasperation with Simon. "I’m exhausted," Olivier states as Simon goes off again, going on to ask, "can't we have one weekend with no tears or fights?". Comparisons are drawn with Simon's mother, culminating in a drag sequence of such bum clenching embarrassment that I'm sure the subsequent evenings of some club goers were completely ruined. Concerning a poor performance, Dupuis stages the scene with ruthless precision, essaying the gulf of distance between how someone with main character syndrome may imagine something happening and how it actually goes down in unforgiving reality. Dupuis provokes acute sympathy for Simon in this moment of sublime cringe, because we realise that, despite his confidence, he is still just a kid (a pet theory: young adulthood for gay men, who have escaped the impediments of adolescence and found their people, and who mature more leisurely than women, is often a second childhood). In the final scene, the implications of the film's title is honoured, but in a sequence which is so idealised one wonders if it occurs within the fragile confines of Simon's mind. In a film built around duality, Solo ends upon an enigma, a reflection sharp as glitter.
Solo is in UK/ROI cinemas from September 19th.
