Departures (Review): Raucous Grief and the queer urge to ignore Red Flags
A raucous self-aware romp through the tragedy of toxic situationships with bisexual Mancunians.
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Departures will be in UK & Irish Cinemas from 17th April.
We got to interview the cast and crew last year at BFI Flare!
We've all been there – he's working things out through you, you're just happy to be involved. Until you aren't.
Departures is a raucous, self-aware needling at the sore, romantic spot in all of us. Using voiceover and playing with mixed media, the film immediately ignites a direct back-and-forth with the audience; now I'm involved, I'm yelling "Booooo" in my head, I'm begging our protagonist to see the red flags. In form, it also feels like the comedic cousin of Plainclothes, Carmen Emmi's debut from last year, which also played with medium and form in similar ways, but with entirely different objectives.
Really, despite its 2010s British Comedy energy, Departures is on a mission to discuss self-acceptance – the kind that exists beyond Pride parades, in the quiet moments of self-destruction, borne of the momentum of living in a latently homophobic, toxic world.
There's more torture inflicted on others in the resistance of the self, and, in some ways, both characters resist versions of themselves that could be happier or more liberated, because they're still reckoning with the past and their upbringings. Sounds simple on paper, but we all know how much more complicated it is than that.
I'm always skeptical of "Bisexual Bad" narratives because they're often done carelessly – but Departures is clear – Jake is dealing with some serious backstory, and that's where his "villain arc" stems from. It's not the orientation that's the issue; it's the acceptance of it. Maybe, also, a little bit of emotional manipulation there, too, as a treat. This is cinema after all.
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