Director: Nicolas Athané, Marco Nguyen
Writer: Simon Balteaux, Marco Nguyen, Nicolas Athané, Brice Chevillard
Stars: Alex Ramirès, Jérémy Gillet, Philippe Katerine
Synopsis: A gay influencer’s life crumbles when a virus turns gay men in Paris straight. He teams up with a twink to find a rumored cure in the Marais. A satire on identity, fame, and queer culture.
If you’re still believing that “animation is for kids,” make them watch Nicolas Athané and Marco Nguyen’s Jim Queen. The film contains enough phallic imagery and raunchy sexual content to completely rebuke this shortsighted notion that animated images mean a movie is for children. Animation is the purest form of expression there is to visually represent feelings that live-action photography can’t capture, because our minds can create images that our eyes can’t see. It’s why every single frame of this unabashedly queer French animated movie brims with impeccable artistry, even if the story has been treated many times before.
Athané and Nguyen recognize that their movie might not reinvent the screenwriting wheel when tracking the burgeoning relationship between gay influencer Jim Perfect (Alex Ramières) and superfan Lucien (Jérémy Gillet), but the two certainly have many things to say about today’s regressive society and conservatives’ push against the words “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “equity.” The film imagines a France under a Le Pen-esque right-wing government, where a bustling queer community is quickly ravaged by a mysterious STI dubbed “heterosis.”
No one knows where it comes from, but the virus has not been made up and will turn any gay man who contracts it into a heterosexual, which we know because all of them suddenly develop a passion for beer and an innate understanding of football rules. Jim, one of social media’s prominent queer figures, has developed symptoms of the virus and has one week to find a cure before he is permanently converted. His doctor friend, Nina (Shirley Souagnon), refers him to Dr. Ragoult (Brice Chevillard – an obvious play on words on the conspiracy-sphere favorite Dr. Didier Raoult) who claims to have a cure for heterosis found within the prostate of Lucien, a closeted gay teenager and son of health minister Christine Bayer (Elisabeth Wiener).
Lucien follows Jim’s daily activities and aspires to be just like him, which makes it easy for the latter to pretend to be infatuated with Lucien to gain his trust. Of course, Jim begins to develop true feelings for him, and it’s relatively easy to guess where the main storyline will be going, even if Nguyen and Athané will add new narrative elements (and precise references) to keep audience members on their toes.
Near the middle of the movie, the duo introduces audiences to the Gaystapo, a movement created by the country’s remaining gay men to ensure no one else succumbs to heretosis and will convert anyone who has caught the virus in their BDSM sarcophagus. They will also introduce Glamydia (Harald Marlot), the drag queen, a character who has far more importance than initially meets the eye. It’s the type of wild and outlandish surprises that make this animated film feel incredibly energetic, even if one can feel exhausted in Jim Queen’s brand of hypermaximalism. Everything is in your face, and if you don’t like such an approach, you might not vibe with Jim Queen.
However, if you enjoy such a movie, it’s hard not to dismiss what it’s doing. The film’s hand-drawn animation (from studio Bobbypills) is extremely detailed and imaginative, whether in representing a heightened version of the real world or being inspired by corners of animation we wouldn’t expect such a movie to riff on. There’s one notable riff on Dragon Ball Z, acting as a pivotal dramatic turn for Lucien, that feels so tailor-made for anyone who grew up with the anime and had their minds melted as a result. Some visual references are extremely apparent; others are thoughtfully researched and less obvious for anyone who might not be versed in the happenings of the French sociopolitical sphere.
That said, it is very clear how the screenplay has its finger on the pulse more than any other animated movie made today, especially one that confronts the public about how words like “the woke mob” mean nothing when the LGBTQ+ community celebrates queer joy as an essential driving force of their resilience. It’s a movie that illustrates this inextricable fact and isn’t afraid to show images that are still heavily restricted in many parts of the world. Without revealing things that may not be safe for work, Jim Queen more than earns its rare 16+ rating in Québec (to compare, the NC-17 director’s cut of Ken Russell’s The Devils received a 13+ rating), especially during its denouement, where sex becomes a kaleidoscopic collage after Lucien fully comes out of the closet.
To discuss such a scene would mean revealing the most unexpected and visually unreal sequence coming from an animated movie that has taken Cannes, Annecy, and Fantasia by storm. Sure, Athané and Nguyen treat a highly traditional narrative without changing much in the telegraphed emotional beats of Jim and Lucien’s respective stories. But they more than compensate with staggering hand-drawn frames, perceptive and highly entertaining humor, and a sharp outlook on today’s society, which must resist the oppressive forces looking to deny basic human rights by using coded language to hide their blatant racism and homophobia.
More than ever, though, Jim Queen reminds us how animation is cinema. It’s unequivocal. Live-action filmmaking could never capture such a unique and ambitious queer love story like this one. I’d love to see anyone who pretends otherwise try, but they will obviously fail. No one can make a movie quite like Jim Queen. And no one can animate it the way Bobbypills did, either.
