As recent directorial debuts go, you’ll struggle to find one as vulnerable and brimming with fresh ideas as writer-director Carmen Emmi’s bittersweet thriller. Centred on second-generation cop Lucas (Tom Blyth), and jumping between chapters in the aftermath of his father’s death, this tense yet tender story follows Lucas as his youthful looks are weaponised to entrap gay men at a time when same-sex intimacy was criminalised in several US states. Meanwhile, he navigates sticky politics at home during the first big family meal without his father or his girlfriend Emily (Amy Forsyth), with whom he recently broke up.

Emmi pivots between mediums to externalise the disarray in Lucas’ head. A closeted young man during the time of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, his only frame of reference for homosexualit

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