The strength of Plainclothes is the way it captures a memory. Fitting, for a film primarily set on New Year’s Eve. Memories of loved ones often replay during the holidays, and, when for some reason or another, the relationship got cut off, they replay like a supercut highlighting all of the possible reasons why it ended. So while it does take a while to settle into, writer-director Carmen Emmi’s mishmash of VHS footage, shots from a distance, and the nineties setting strengthens Lucas’ guilt over the police work he was assigned to as an undercover officer, the kind of cruelty widely accepted by most institutions of the time. Plainclothes remembers this pain, the tension, and the isolation that many have denied existed.
"Tovey gives a smartly understated performance, Andrew’s calmness simultaneously bringing a stability lacking in Lucas’s life while suggesting an enigmatic, unknowable edge to his character."
— Alex Davidson
"‘Plainclothes’ feels seductively alive when Lucas and Andrew are alone together—either under the warm lights of the movie theater, where their shadows betray them, or as their hands touch the other’s body inside a lonely greenhouse. I"
— Carlos Aguilar
In 1990s New York, an undercover police officer receives an assignment to lure and arrest gay men. However, he's surprised to discover a scintillating connection with one of his targets. As their secret connection deepens and internal pressure to deliver arrests intensifies, he finds himself torn between duty and desire.
Sundance
1 win
