For a film named “Unicorns,” color is noticeably absent at first. Luke (Ben Hardy) lives in a world of gray, where cloudy skies and towering blocks of concrete threaten to crush him completely. So too does the responsibility of raising a five-year-old son alone after his ex ran out. Not even a casual hook-up in a grubby field behind his Essex council estate frees him of that cramped, confined feeling, especially when the woman he’s just shagged cooly blows him off.
That all changes when Luke takes a wrong turn in an Indian restaurant one day and ends up in a Gaysian club night. Upon pushing that door open, strobe lights flood his monochromatic existence with neon colors that pulsate and glitter on stage where Aysha (Jason Patel) is performing. It’s almost like that unforgettable moment in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy’s world transforms to color, except there’s no yellow brick road here. Instead, it’s Luke who gets bricked up, watching Aysha dance.
The pair soon meet, each entranced by the other, and it’s not long before Aysha moves in for a kiss. It’s like a dream, too good to be true, until it turns out the apple of Luke’s eye actually has an Adam’s apple, which sends his whole world spinning.
Yes, Aysha is a drag queen, and when the makeup comes off, she goes by the name of Ashiq. Luke is appalled, initially, but he still says yes when Aysha contacts him a few days later and asks if he can drive her to gigs in exchange for money. It seems they’re both reluctant to let go of that initial spark, and so begins a regular working arrangement that changes everything for Luke and Aysha too.
Star-crossed love of this nature, queer or straight, for as long as moving images have existed. But these days, even the cultural specificity of this exact setup has become surprisingly familiar. Along with Amrou Al-Kadhi’s “Layla” and “Femme,” a thriller co-directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, “Unicorns” is in fact the third British film to grapple with romance between a white guy and a drag artist of color in the last two years alone.
That’s not a bad thing. No one’s ever complained that there were too many straight white rom-coms, after all, and it should be the same for these films too, because each has something very different to offer in the blurred lines of race, gender, and sexuality that they all explore. More romantic than “Layla” and gentler than “Femme,” “Unicorns” lies somewhere between the two in terms of its intensity, yet there’s still hope to be found and even some glitz amidst the gritty social realism of it all.
Writer James Krishna Floyd co-directed the film with Sally El Hosaini, who cast him as the star of her debut, “My Brother the Devil,” back in 2012 with a story of a young gay Muslim drug dealer in Hackney. Combined with that experience also comes the expertise of Asifa Lahore, recognized as Britain’s first “out” Muslim drag queen, who acted as a consultant and executive producer on “Unicorns.”
That influence can be felt in Aysha’s world, especially, whether she’s dancing for closeted Muslim men in private house parties or reckoning with her own closeted life at home. The community she’s lacking every time she goes back to visit her parents in Manchester is made up for by the chosen family she surrounds herself with in Essex, even if fraught rivalries mean these queens are sometimes more competitive than sisterly.
The aforementioned “Layla” aside, it’s rare to see sexual and gender fluidity explored so freely and authentically through a South Asian lens in British cinema, despite there being at least 5 million people of South Asian descent living in the UK. That’s why a shift towards Aysha’s personal life outside of her romance with Luke is very much welcomed in the second half of “Unicorns,” helping to set it apart by adding more weight to the script.
Crucially, that doesn’t mean there’s a third act descent into trauma porn. There are some harder edges, yes, but there’s also a fairytale shimmer to the film that softens them throughout, be it through the central romance or Aysha finding joy in her femininity.
Newcomer Patel brings an open heart to the role of Aysha, dancing between vulnerability and seductive magnetism with subtle shifts in physicality. Her performance scenes on stage are electric, making it easy to see why Luke fell so hard in the first place, but it’s when Ashiq spends time with his biological family that the real performance kicks in. Hardy’s body language is all pent up too. You can feel Luke’s tangible unease with himself as he struggles to come to grips with this attraction and the love he feels in the face of ingrained prejudice. It’s Hardy’s best performance to date, the kind you hope will set him on the same trajectory that peers such as George MacKay and Harris Dickinson have enjoyed in recent years.
What brings Aysha and Luke together so beautifully is how they — for all their differences — learn to trust their feelings and find comfort in one another. The chemistry they share overcomes some of the script’s formulaic direction, bolstered by a camera that often lingers at just the right moments, catching a glance or smile that speaks to something deeper and more real.
For better or worse, it feels like there’s more to this story beyond the credits, but for two hours at least, “Unicorns” will help you escape the gray monotony of life with flair and color.
Grade: B
“Unicorns” opens from Cohen Media Group in select theaters on Friday, July 18.
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