Plainclothes Synopsis

This thrilling debut from director Carmen Emmi is a brooding psychological drama starring Russell Tovey and Tom Blyth, who meet under complicated circumstances. It took home the Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Andrew (Tovey) is illicitly cruising the bathrooms of a strip mall when he meets Lucas (Blyth), who is an undercover cop on an assignment to catch and arrest men just like him. But something happens when they meet, and an instant connection is formed between them, causing Lucas to abort his professional mission. The encounter throws Lucas off-kilter, and he’s forced to confront long-buried desires he’s tried so hard to suppress. In an attempt to reckon with them, what follows is a thrilling game of cat and mouse that threatens to upend both men’s lives for good.

Harnessing lo-fi VHS footage to play with voyeuristic, tense notions of surveillance, the film is a story of forbidden love that speaks to pertinent themes of state surveillance and societal intolerance.