Pretty Red Dress

Set in a predominantly black community of South London, Pretty Red Dress, the debut feature of Dionne Edwards, is a crowd-pleasing entertainment extolling the virtues of warm hearts and open minds.

Travis is fresh out of jail; he tries to continue his good relations with partner Candice and teenage daughter Kenisha, but things are subtly amiss. Each member of this family unit privately struggles with a changing orientation in their life: Candice dreams of showbiz success as a Tina Turner imitator; Kenisha explores her burgeoning sexual desires; and Travis, while clashing with his brother Clive, finds himself irresistibly attracted to Candice’s sparkly new red dress.

The film is winningly queer in the sense of being indifferent to fixed identity types – whether straight, gay or trans – and rigidly causal explanations of why people become whatever they are. Instead, the story’s central question is how each of us can manage to sort out what is useless, dead-end fantasy, as distinct from truly finding the core of oneself. Pulsing with great Motown tunes and alternating between dramatic clinches and humorous relief, Pretty Red Dress is shot in an immediate, absorbing manner that pays full homage to the talents of its cast.

– Adrian Martin