Director Jonathan Butterell’s thoroughly delightful blend of Billy Elliot and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is based on the Dan Gillespie Sells/Tom MacRae 2017 stage musical of the same name, which in turn is adapted from the 2011 television documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, which profiled Jamie Campbell.
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| After Jamie (Max Harwood) gets a bit too aggressive with an eyebrow pencil, his best friend Pritti (Lauren Patel) graciously does her best to repair the damage. |
MacRae handles the script here, and Butterell also directed the play’s original Sheffield and West End productions, so there’s no question this film is faithful to their original vision. That’s important, given the subject’s sensitivity, which Butterell treats with respect. The result is joyous, poignant, uplifting, frequently amusing and — at times — emotionally shattering.
Which you’d expect, given that we’re talking about a teenager who wanted to come out as a drag queen, in a conservative, working-class community in Sheffield, England.
Butterell’s film is powered by an incandescent performance by star Max Harwood, in a frankly amazing acting and singing debut. There’s often something special about a talented actor’s debut screen role: Absent expectations and preconceived notions — it’s not as if we know anything about Harwood — it’s easier to embrace the notion that he is this character.
And he has absolutely no trouble handling choreographer Kate Prince’s inventively staged song-and-dance numbers. The first one — “And You Don’t Even Know It,” which establishes Jamie’s personality, hopes and dreams — is a true stunner.
Indeed, Butterell and all concerned have “opened up” the stage production quite imaginatively.
Musicals are, by nature, strange beasts; some seamlessly integrate the songs and production numbers into the narrative — Cabaret, most famously — while others simply interrupt the story. Jamie is one of the latter, although — to its credit — all the songs are so heartfelt, poignant or flamboyantly fun, that it’s easy to succumb to the film’s spirit.
With his dyed platinum blond pixie cut, gaudy accoutrements added to the mandated uniform, and aggressively frank personality, Jamie New (Harwood) is quite a presence at Mayfield High School. That rarely works in his favor, and he’s often targeted by mocking lads egged on by the sneering Dean (Samuel Bottomley).
He has one friend: the diminutive Pritti Pasha (Lauren Patel, in an equally strong acting debut), a studious Muslim who plans to become a doctor. She’s Jamie’s exact opposite: a shy, conservative girl who wouldn’t dream of wearing makeup, and hates being the center of attention. But — even though Butterell and MacRae don’t go there much — the hijab clearly has made her an outcast in this community, so of course she understands and sympathizes with Jamie’s isolation.
Despite the fact that it’s his own fault, given the way he behaves. Indeed, she’s his second staunchest advocate, forever encouraging him to embrace his ambitions, to “stop waiting for permission to be you.”
