By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Sophie Dupuis
• Starring Theodore Pellerin, Felix Martiaud, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Alice Moreault
• Not Rated

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

At my film festival screening for Solo, I got the chance to listen to director Sophie Dupuis discuss the making of her film in detail. She described the film as both a love letter to drag culture as well as romance itself, but was very carefully in actually mentioning whether or not the film itself was in, of itself, a romantic one. After seeing the film, the hesitation on that front was understandable.

Solo, which is being marketed as a romantic queer drama, is not that… mostly. It does have a romance at it’s center, which is between two drag queens in Montreal, but Solo is ultimately a story about toxic relationships gone south. Toxic familial relationships, toxic work relationships, toxic romantic ones. Obsession gone too far, and when love turns into sour milk. It’s a queer story about the community as people, with all of the good and bad mixed in.

Dupuis mostly succeeds on all fronts here. The vibrant, colorful cinematography, production design, and costume design all pop off the screen, and Dupuis opens her film with a bang. Set to ABBA’s Voulez-Vou, the opening drag number is so strong that almost overshadows the rest of the film, so it’s a good thing Dupuis fills her film with constant setpieces just like it. The film even ends with one such performance, which is equally as fun and exciting. Contrast this with any sequence outside of it, and the slow, methodical pace that Dupuis employs for their execution is a great juxtaposition.

Both Pellerin and Maritaud are brilliant here, both having electric, sexy chemistry with each other while also shining in their darker moments. Maritaud in particular is insidious in the way he creeps up on you, luring you and Pellerin into a false sense of security about his presence. And then he cheats. And then he yells. And then he gaslights. As he expands his scope of influence, Pellerin’s Simon begins to implode and finds solace in his distant mother, who seems almost aloof to her own toxicity and narcissism.

You do need to be on this wavelength to appreciate the film, however. There is definitely going to be an audience frustrated with it, wanting our lead to simply leave and recognize the obvious. But when love is involved, whether it be to people or the craft, it’s difficult to see that, and the beauty of Solo as a film is that it forces the audience to sit in it’s frustration, to see the world from the perspective of somebody in love with the craft and the man who implanted himself into a life that he didn’t belong to. It’s a challenging act to balance, but thankfully Dupuis is a talented force to be reckoned with in terms of the balancing tones.

It will be difficult to see if Solo appeals to those outside of the queer community – I found the reaction from others at the festival to be rather mixed and divisive – but I personally found this to be compelling, challenging, and widely impressive. If anything, it’s a showcase of the best talents of everybody involved outside of a couple of hiccups (the lack of actual drag performers in the cast is really disappointing), and deserves a look for anybody who is curious about the subject matter. Just be prepared for something different then what is being sold.