“Jim Queen” is a movie that very a lot sells itself (or very a lot doesn’t, relying on the potential viewer) on its one-line elevator pitch. A cartoon about two homosexual males — one a vapid, brawny influencer, the opposite a shy, closeted slip of a factor — drawn collectively to struggle Heterosis, a conversion virus launched by the conservative proper on an unsuspecting queer neighborhood: You’re both in otherwise you’re out, so to talk, and when you suppose that very premise sounds too foolish to perform, then nothing in French duo Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athané’s dizzy, pastel-drenched satire goes to persuade you in any other case. If the concept raises a chuckle, nonetheless, then so will a lot else in “Jim Queen”: a brief, concentrated barrage of jokes good, dangerous and each, fired with sufficient vitality and gee to maintain a spirit of hilarity afloat all through.
A uncommon shot of broad, brash comedy within the Cannes Film Festival — the place it premiered within the Midnight part, offering one thing of a tonal counterpoint to the standard style fare there — “Jim Queen” is in some methods a really French affair, shot by with particular satirical nods to native tradition and politics (together with a frosted-fascist villainess that some could liken to Marine Le Pen, although she’s extra instantly modelled on Sarkozy-era gay-rights opponent Christine Boutin). Nevertheless it additionally interprets readily to only about any market the place there’s a vocal political motion in opposition to queer rights, which is to say extra of the world than needs to be the case.
If the movie’s considerably non-intersectional evocation of the Paris queer neighborhood (with a heavy emphasis on the G over the LBTQ) leaves Nguyen and Athané’s movie feeling barely out of time in some features, that doesn’t have an effect on the overall giddy enjoyable of the enterprise — and gained’t cease “Jim Queen” from being a staple on the queer fest circuit within the coming yr.
It opens on a excessive, with a musical quantity so fleet and humorous and ebullient, you would possibly want the entire movie had dedicated to the style: In militaristic sync as they pound treadmills, down protein shakes and take steroid injections within the buttocks, a gymnasium filled with lavishly buff (even 24-packed, to cite a droll visible gag) homosexual males blankly sing the praises of the body-beautiful life-style to a pounding EDM beat. Their alpha chief is Jim (voiced by Alex Ramirès), a ginger-bearded Adonis with pecs like rocks and a mind that’s significantly softer, not that his legions of Instagram followers and OnlyFans subscribers are after his ideas.
Amongst these acolytes is Lucien (Jérémy Gillet), a reedy, repressed younger virgin who yearns to be a part of the homosexual neighborhood however hasn’t the braveness to come back out to his domineering mom Christine (Elisabeth Wiener), who additionally simply occurs to be the nation’s very right-wing well being minister. Off his bed room, a literal closet lined with intercourse toys and Jim posters is visualized in a fashion akin to Ariel’s grotto of dry-land keepsakes in “The Little Mermaid,” with an appropriate accompanying ballad of craving.
When Jim contracts the sexually transmitted Heterosis virus — a illness that causes an urge to maneuver to the suburbs and procreate with the other intercourse, and withers the muscle tissue to a dadbod consistency — and his social media numbers plummet, Lucien is left as his lone remaining admirer. Because the homosexual plenty as an alternative flock to Jim’s burly scene rival Pavel, wittily voiced by porn icon François Sagat, Jim and Lucien crew as much as discover out what’s inflicting Heterosis and what would possibly treatment it. It’s a quest that leads them alongside a neon impediment course of nightclubs, cruising grounds and chemsex events, pursued in flip by a rageful Christine, in addition to the Gaystapo, a motion to “protect prostate pleasure” that resorts to violent reverse dialog remedy techniques to counter the virus.
As satire, it’s extra loosely irreverent than devastatingly pointed, however alongside the satisfying potshots on the far proper, Nguyen and Athané’s script additionally takes welcome goal at physique fascism and different types of discrimination throughout the homosexual neighborhood. Not that the movie devotes an excessive amount of time to moralizing when there are such a lot of throwaway quips and sight gags to get by, towards a conclusion that advocates vigorous anal intercourse as a worldwide cure-all.
The humor and storytelling may be likened to “South Park” of their mindless, fast-moving escalation towards absurdity, and the broadly cartoonish animation type — clear strains, popping eyes, flat expanses of coloration in ’80s mall-decor shades of pink, lilac and spearmint — is a operating reminder of simply how significantly to take the entire enterprise. At one level, Jim, Lucien and their cohorts infiltrate Christine’s closely guarded property underneath cowl of a literal Trojan unicorn, exiting through its rectum: one other very silly and really humorous visible joke that sums up “Jim Queen’s” altogether undisguised, uncompromised strategy.
