Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Lance Hammer
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay, Anna Calder-Marshall, Florence Hunt
The law, as it stands, is cautiously situational on the matter. I refer directly to the .org website of the Alzheimer's Society, which states "a diagnosis of dementia does not mean that someone automatically lacks the ability to consent to sex and intimacy. However, they may have the mental capacity to engage in sex at some times, and lack it at others. Both partners must consent to sexual activity." How to define and ensure someone's mental capacity, though? Ensuing legislation which pertains to sexual consent and dementia is therefore, at best, dependent on individual context but at worst slippery and open to exploitative interpretation. It is an uncomfortable quandary, which, in the manner of such impasses, is highly compelling. Taking this moral quagmire as a narrative drive, Lance Hammer's Queen at Sea boldly explores the ethical implications of sexual contact within relationships affected by progressive neurological condition (I'm keeping my beak out of this one, btw: unlike last week's Blue Film, where my moral standpoint was assured even if the film's wasn't, the complex plot points of Queen at Sea don't allow for such straightforward conclusions).
We open with an elderly heterosexual couple walking together, and as they shuffle across a landscape characterised by graffiti and concrete (hallmarks of an alienating modernity) from their movements alone, via the excellent throughout performances of Tom Courtenay (Martin) and Anna Calder-Marshall (Leslie), it is clear that there is time-honed affection and complicity between the two. And perhaps the walk got the old sap rising, because before you know it the two are having it off together at home when they are interrupted by Leslie's daughter Amanda (Juliette Binoche) and granddaughter Sara (Florence Hunt). Mega cringe, as the Gen Z teen would probably say, but it gets worse: Leslie has advanced dementia, and Amanda doesn't believe that her mother is capable of sexual consent. What's worse is that she's warned stepfather Martin about this previously. Amanda calls the police.
Queen at Sea may be a hard sell ("Do you fancy that new film about consent issues surrounding the sexuality of a woman with increasingly more deleterious Alzheimer's?", ".....", "Juliette Binoche is in it", "You bet!, etc"), yet Hammer orchestrates the material sensitively and by means of vivid storytelling. Amanda is our touchstone throughout, and Binoche essays a character who is both frustrated and frustrating, a flawed character who may be acting on impulses beyond a duty of care for her parent (it's not a funny film at all, but I confess that I did burst out laughing twice in Queen at Sea, maybe due to the pressure of the film's febrile atmosphere: the first was in joy at how beautiful Binoche remains, and the second incident came later...). The police arrive, setting in motion a chain of events which sees Martin arrested, and Leslie sent to a care home, their affiliation torn asunder. "I thought they'd just warn him." Amanda gormlessly laments.
A pressing aspect of Queen at Sea's polemic (and I think that there is a clear rhetoric to the film) is that Leslie, in a home and scared and vulnerable, is incontestably worse off in terms of socialisation and safety without Martin. He, in turn, argues that sex is a comfort, that certain psychological paradigms maintain that loving intimacy is beneficial to the patient (his point of view, at least, is supported by his use of Viagra which suggests that his sexuality is a decision, rather than an urge which requires satisfaction). This is played out within the uncanny anomality where what should be private and physical is discussed in an openly official manner with intense precision; I'm assuming that Hammer thoroughly read and researched the legalise and ramifications of his subject matter as Queen at Sea's procedural drama feels horribly, unflinchingly convincing. We see Leslie scream and thrash when she is physically examined by a nurse to ascertain that intercourse took place, an upsetting display which vividly contrasts the glass-eyed passivity she showed when Martin was thrusting into her earlier; the grim medical procedure is also, as Martin insists, unnecessary as he freely admits sex took place. Indeed, Leslie rushes back to his side as soon as she is able to, the film making it clear that she is unafraid of him and intuitively seeks his comforts.
Leslie's reliance on Martin is understandable, as Amanda hasn't been around for 18 years, and has seemingly only returned home because she is estranged from her own husband. At one point, Martin accuses Amanda of jealousy, as her life doesn't feature the bond and intimacies which he and Leslie enjoy. Moreover, Queen at Sea juxtaposes the burgeoning love life of Sara with her grandmother's situation (the film's depiction of Gen Z is satisfyingly curt: Sara doesn't seem at all bothered about the developing situation, boasting about seeing an old man's nob to a classmate and calling Leslie her "mad nan"-!), with Amanda taking it upon herself to interfere here too, mortifyingly buying her daughter "Extra Safe" condoms. Capable of reactive gestures, Amanda is yet not equipped to look after her mother in the practised manner that Martin is, and, with Martin unable to be with his wife while under investigation, she immediately struggles to cope with looking after Leslie. Amanda's thoughtlessness and emotional behaviour is entirely convincing, however, because Queen at Sea recognises that this is what people are like: complicated and imperfect.
Convincing, that is until the final scene which, I'm not proud to admit, was so baroque in its slapstick misfortune that it made me laugh a second time (partly from the jolt of it, but mainly from the sudden escalation of hardship). The shocking coda consolidates the film's ideology and leaves us with a rhetorical lack of resolution, but this is achieved via a momentary lack of subtlety which is a rare misstep (no pun intended) in this otherwise absorbing, challenging and brave film.
Queen at Sea is in UK/ROI cinemas from September 18th.
