‘Layla’ Review: Amrou Al-Kadhi’s Engaging Study Of Love In The Pronoun Era – Sundance Film Festival
deadline.comGay cinema certainly has turned a corner lately, in the wake of films as varied as Cassandro, Rustin and All of Us Strangers, stories in which the lead character’s sexuality might form a crucial part of the tapestry of the drama but isn’t the be-all and end-all.
Leading the vanguard for the next generation is this confident debut from 33-year-old British-Iraqi director Amrou Al-Kadhi, a frank and emotionally honest portrait of someone who falls outside society’s boxes and steadfastly refuses to conform to them.
This emphasis on the positive is sometimes counterintuitive (more on that later), but, thanks to its core cast, Layla is an engaging study of love in the pronoun era.
Layla (Bilal Hasna) is a non-binary drag queen/performance artist who lives in London, in a house they share with a bunch of like-minded queens, a sharp, ragtag bunch more prone to discussing the merits of The Human Centipede or Saw V than the latest Kylie.
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