Plainclothes: All the things we’re not allowed to have | OBSCURAE @ SXSW London

It's 1997, and things seem simple.

Emmi pulls you in with the intrigue - the inherent rugged danger of Police entrapping gay men for "indecent exposure" for all the stupid reasons that we now consider the past. Simple, right?

Quickly, the premise starts unravelling - our protagonist, Blyth's Lucas, is having panic attacks. He knows what he's doing is wrong - he knows he's entrapping his own community.

By the time this tone shift has occurred, and the striking and evocative visual style is strongly established, this stops being a thriller and starts being a Coming Out story, a tale of discovery and novelty, of love and heartbreak, but in the way only an honest broker can tell it.

There are no hallmarks of Hollywood here, this is all indie, all arthouse, all at the ground level. The romance feels larger, the heartbreak more devastating, and the anger more volatile. This is our not too distant past - lest we forget - and how much pain and trauma lies behind our present. A present that was paid for in decades of repression.

God forbid I forget to mention Russell Tovey in one of the most indulgently and lovingly tender roles I've had the pleasure of watching him perform - his take on Andrew is holy (all pun intended), and completely takes you off guard. Once you meditate on the entire arc of Andrew's story, you will find yourself in an Uber from Shoreditch sobbing your eyes out. Or maybe that's just me. No spoilers, but Andrew's tenderness makes all the more sense when you know who he really is - and in a just world, the two sides of his character wouldn't be so at odds with each other. I like to imagine all the myriad of Andrews out there living in love and purpose in the same breath, no matter how much the world says they are oil and water.

I chased this film around Cannes and was unable to make a screening, so I'm grateful for SXSW London for programming it, and to Emmi for creating it. In being almost documentarian in it's voyeurism, and focusing on the not too distant past, the film becomes more modern and more relevant than ever.