Layla

The Brits know know how to write great scripts and make amazing down to earth, real and raw movies.

LAYLA is a stunning, beautiful and sensitive portrait of a gay man who likes to perform in outrageous drag and happens to come from a Muslim family from Palestine. He is not out to his religious family and stays with a wonderfully supportive small community of other queer people. He then meets his match in a guy his age and it all feels so easy and fun until Layla realizes that his free life comes with a price and he does not want to give up that amazing freedom. This movie and its cast is just absolutely amazing and it is so refreshing to watch a gay movie that stays away from silly stereotypes like most American gay movies cant get away from.

I had the pleasure to see the film at the Summer Sundance Film Festival. The director introduced the film and briefly talked about needing to "perform" in many aspects of our lives. I found this theme prominent in the film with not only the main character, Layla, but many other characters as well. I think the film portrayed the complexities of identity, specifically the in between-ness of labeled identities. At the same time the film was beautiful in the colors it used, wardrobes of characters, and the music was splendid. Overall the film is throught provoking and also celebrates drag in a unique way.

I saw this via Cinematix and I'm glad I did as it isn't the usual type of film I'd generally watch. The comedy & romance v family & cultural expectations that were intermeshed throughout the story sucked me into Layla's life. Navigating their life journey, we meet Layla's support network at the Feathers. I was entranced by the amazing costumes and transformations into drag and the friendship dynamics through the story. The only thing I would say is there was quite a lot of queer sexual activity within the film for a 15 rated film - so if that makes you uncomfortable in a cinema, you may want to watch at home!

This film had the entire movie theatre in stitches of laughter throughout! It felt really important to watch something that captured a side of the community that's rarely given such a platform and without all the tropes of the queer stories we're used to seeing. For the audience it's intended for, Layla is a hilarious yet poignant story with beautiful writing, fab set design, perfect casting and two stellar performances from Layla (played by Bilal Hasna) and Max (played by Louis Greatorex). I wish there'd been more films like this when I was growing up. Huge bravo to all those involved, looking forward to seeing what you create next.

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi has made an very fun, sweet and positive queer drama comedy with strong direction and amazing performances from all the cast members, particularly Bilal Hasna. The writing and direction helps capture the conflicts of traditional religious traditions, queer culture and the impacts of queer and drag relationships between the characters and setting. Many of the production designs, sound designs, and the dialogue is really good and the color presentation was beautiful.

Bilal Hasna and Louis Greatorex have really good chemistry between one another and many of the conversations and emotional moments were strong and visually engaging. There are some good humor but some of the humor aspects felt a little dry and could use some work. I did wish the movie did explore some of the other themes a little more but it didn't ruin the experience for me.

This movie made me learn a lot about the queer community and the drag lifestyle. And this movie was queerly wholesome to watch.