Review: You Fisted Me to the Heart
Review: You Fisted Me to the Heart
Alexis Langlois' ‘Queens of Drama’ serves glitterpop toxicity that will make your ears bleed—and your heart sing!
The Yearning Rating: ✰✰✰✰½
Romance: ✰✰✰✰
Sex: ✰✰✰✰✰
Storytelling: ✰✰✰
Performance: ✰✰✰✰
Yearning: ✰✰✰✰✰
Thank you to NewFest for asking us to be community partners for this year’s festival! NewFest is showing films in New York and nationwide online through October 22nd, so make sure you catch some of the amazing queer cinema offered!
Unlike our favorite pop divas of the early-aughts, this review will remain unspoiled.
Written by Ali Romig
On Monday night, Meg and I braved the fall’s first truly blustery night to attend a screening of Queens of Drama at Nitehawk. We were excited to be there as part of NewFest, but if I am being completely honest, I hadn’t heard of the film until we were offered the opportunity to co-present it as one of the festival’s community partners. All I knew was what was in the online description—“an outrageous French musical satire inspired by the American pop frenzy of the early 2000s”. Based on that alone, I was all in. The noughties glitterpop we were served was nothing less than spectacular. As friend of The Yearning, Nia Gibson, said afterwards, “If I am not watching this, I am not watching a movie.”
Queens of Drama (Les Reines du Drame) charts the rise and fall of young pop icon Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura), as well as her tumultuous relationship with feminist punk singer Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura). From her start as a contestant on “Stars in the Making”—an American Idol substitute replete with brutal and/or washed-up judges who sneer at hopefuls—to an eventual Britney Spears-inspired fall from grace, Mimi’s journey closely resembles the all-too-familiar path of many mistreated popstars. Told from the perspective of an aged and Botox-ed gossip Youtuber and longtime Mimi stan, Steevyshady (Bilal Hassani), Queens of Drama is framed as a love story within a love story—each one equally as emotionally raw and abusive. French filmmaker Alexis Langlois highlights obsession as the main driver of almost every character. Whether it is a cultural obsession with image, the blinding, dangerous obsession of a fandom, or the misguided obsession of young queer love, this movie is simply teeming with early-aughts toxicity.
Young queers have never not flocked to glitterpop divas in droves. Right now we’re seeing a renaissance of queer pop idols, but in the 2000s, when this film is set, the industry—its message and image—was largely traditional. At its core, mainstream pop is a capitalist enterprise, yet there has always been an underground network of various queer cultures serving as its backbone. This movie encapsulates the full spectrum of ‘00’s queer pop lore. From the closeted dykes forced to perpetuate feminine ideals to achieve success, to the gay Youtubers who act as the final word on taste, to the drag queens who zealously lampoon all of it.
Queens of Drama is itself a lampoon—but a loving one—dedicated to all those has-beens who were chewed up and spit out by a cruel and superficial industry. So what is it about pop that keeps us coming back for more despite this kind of exploitation? Maybe this is just another example of a toxic relationship–between gays and the genre itself.
This might all sound like a big bummer, but it’s not. I truly wish every movie-going experience was as fun as this one. Queens of Drama is a campy fever dream from start to finish. All the sets have a theatrical, handmade quality to them—as if straight out of Julio Torres’ mind—and each scene is filmed behind a nostalgic Vaseline screen. To match the hyperbolic stylization, the actors needed to be game for pretty much anything. And lucky for Langlois, Aura and Ventura—who play our star-crossed lovers—were down to clown. The two leads are electric together, with chemistry that shines, even from behind a face full of dumped period blood. These two actors have the kind of star power you’d need to become a 00’s sensation.
Queens of Drama isn’t only a satirical critique of the music industry, but a bonafide musical in its own right—and damn if its songs aren’t earworms! Langlois collaborated with established French musicians to create the soundtrack (available on Spotify when????), including performer Rebeka Warrior and the band Yelle, and I’m just going to say it…Diane Warren should be quaking in her boots.
The different styles of music featured include everything from punk to teeny pop to rock ballads. When we first meet Billie, she’s singing lyrics like “Pumped up chicks, pecs so slick” and “You and me will fuck the patriarchy” with her band, Slit. Mimi’s breakout hit “Pas Touche” (Don’t Touch) will literally climb inside your brain and imbed itself there, as will her follow-up single “Touch Me” which she puts out as an attempt to reinvent herself. But the most memorable song has to be the one and only “Fist Me to the Heart”—a love song, naturally. If you don’t believe me that these songs could inspire a “Mimi Army”, then see for yourself:
Before the screening, NewFest coordinators shared a statement from Alexis Langlois where he shared, “Recently, someone said that a teenager must’ve made this movie. I think they meant this as an insult, but I think it’s true. Who understands raw emotion and passion more than teenagers?” I’d add that this movie also feels uninhibited in a way that we rarely see past adolescence. It’s scrappy and messy and imperfect, but also confident and eager. I could see Queens of Drama becoming a certified cult classic, and I hope it finds its audience. I for one can’t wait to watch it again, and to see what else comes out of Alexis Langlois’ mind in the future.
Queens of Drama will be released in theaters in France in November, and will hopefully make its way to the US soon! We’ll be on the lookout.
