Sundance 2024: Drag queen film Layla finds joy in being different

Editor's note: this review of Amrou Al-Kadhi's Layla , which recently premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, contains spoilers.

33-year-old British-Iraqi writer/director Amrou Al-Kadhi has made a powerful and beautiful statement with their first feature-length film Layla, which follows a British-Arab drag queen trying to find love and happiness while being true to themself.

Bilal Hasna stars as the entrancing Layla, a nonbinary drag queen who is part of a queer friend group more likely to celebrate Gay Shame than Gay Pride (as they do in the film). When they meet and start to fall in love with a straight-laced advertising executive named Max (Louis Greatorex), they learn that integrating this relationship into their broader life may be more difficult than they thought.

Throughout the film, Max struggles with different aspects of Layla’s life. Their friends are artists and outcasts, their gender is fluid and complicated, and Layla themself is ever-shifting, always loud and bold about who they are.

As Max and Layla spend more time together, Max doesn’t quite get the art that Layla and their friends make and perform, he misgenders Layla, calling them a boy and never even asking their pronouns, and he even asks Layla to get in “guy” drag wearing slacks and a button up shirt to meet his family.

While Max felt that the dinner with his family went well “all things considering,” Layla feels like they are “dressed for their own funeral.”

Yes, both Max and Layla are queer, but that alone isn’t enough to keep them together.

The movie has a great sense of humor, and anyone familiar with the type of queer scene that Layla and their friends are in will feel right at home. Al-Kadhi creates a world that is real but never wallows in the tragedy of some of the heavier issues queer people deal with – like losing family, gentrification, drug use, femmephobia, and relationship trouble.

Instead, Layla is about finding joy, even when love doesn't work out. By the end of the movie, Layla might not have a boyfriend, and the gay bar they frequented might be closed, but they rekindle their relationship with their sister and reaffirm their love for their chosen family. Not all happy endings look the same.

Layla is playing at the Sundance Film Festival.