Sam H. Freeman

In Femme (2023), Jules is attacked in the street for wearing a dress. We were rigid in our seats during the opening act because Freeman and co-director Ng Choon Ping make the threat to Jules so immediate. They handle the hate crime with care, even as they use it to begin an erotic thriller. This is strong, unsettling work, though we do not believe all the choices its protagonist makes.

Freeman’s television writing credits include Industry (2020), but Femme offers the clearest evidence of what he wants to do as a director. The short Femme (2021) became the feature debut in 2023, with Ng sharing the writing and directing on both. We would be wary of assigning either man sole credit for its strengths or weaknesses.

Their stated influences include the late-night crime films of the Safdie brothers, Nicolas Winding Refn and Scorsese. They put a queer protagonist at the centre without making his choices comfortable or reassuring. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Jules and George MacKay as Preston make the encounters between an attacked man and his attacker tense enough to sustain much of the film. The performances are the strongest reason to see it.

The weakness is how often the script needs Jules to go back, with reasons that become harder to credit. Freeman and Ng grow more interested in Preston’s inner life than in that of the man he attacked. John McCrea’s Toby, Jules’s alarmed flatmate, gets little to do beyond worrying, when his concern might have forced the film to examine Jules’s decisions more closely. By the later stretches, some of the slow dread has given way to plotting we can anticipate.

We would follow this partnership into another thriller, though we would want firmer reasons for its characters to put themselves in danger. The actors should not have to do quite so much persuading. Start with Femme, provided the opening violence is something you are prepared to sit through.