PalCinema Review: Lavender Men
May 1, 2025
FILM: LAVENDER MEN
DIRECTED BY: LOVELL HOLDER
STARRING: ROGER Q. MASON, PETE PLOSZEK, ALEX ESOLA
RATING: 2 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Last summer I reviewed a documentary called Lover of Men which presented a compelling argument that President Abraham Lincoln was intimately involved with a number of men during his lifetime. It’s a provocative film that open-minded viewers might be willing to dive into if for only a possible alternate perspective about Lincoln’s personal life. The new film Lavender Men, while not a documentary, uses this theory about Lincoln as part of a play being staged in a small theater. However, the story is much more complex than that. Perhaps too complex, for this is also a film about body image, racism, power, trauma, and one person’s feeling of not being seen.
The film is based on a play by Roger Q. Mason who stars as Taffeta, a non-binary stage manager at a theater attempting to tell the story of Lincoln’s alleged sexual relationship with Elmer Ellsworth, an army officer and law clerk. Depicting this particular story would be interesting enough but what Mason and director Lovell Holder attempt here is a much larger story about Taffeta’s inner turmoil. During a rehearsal, she attempts to interact with a man on a dating site who just happens to be sitting in the theater. Unfortunately, he seems to be involved with one of the male actors in the show. Once everyone is gone, Taffeta is sexually assaulted by another actor who is playing Lincoln. She seems to be affected by this in a number of ways that lead to a strangely woven together series of dreams or as she refers to them as a “fantasia.” She finds herself not only watching a revised version of the production but also playing a number of its roles. Taffeta becomes everyone from Mrs. Lincoln to a Black southern woman who resides in Lincoln’s orbit. This may sound somewhat fun to watch but it becomes a bit too multi-layered with symbolism and, frankly, a lot of poetic but stilted and stagey dialogue.
What Mason and Holder are trying to say here is buried within the dense combination of this dream-like state with a stage-like performance. They seem to be simultaneously attempting to tackle a number of issues including the issues associated with Taffeta’s large physical frame and the feelings she has of not being seen by white men. Lincoln’s fluid sexuality is almost a given here but gets lost in the other personal, weighty issues. Taffeta often directly addresses us which signals even further that this is Taffeta’s story, not Lincoln’s.
The two men playing Lincoln and Ellsworth are the same two men featured earlier in the film as the object of her dating app and one of the stage actors. They’re both very attractive men (as opposed to the much older and creepy looking man who attempts to rape Taffeta.) Eventually they have a rather steamy sexual encounter which Taffeta views from a number of different perspectives. It is also staged in multiple ways, which is artistically interesting but part of an over-indulgence in artful yet confusing editing and shot progression.
The film generally takes place in one space: the small theater, making this a stage show within a stage show within a stage show. It’s a lot to ask of the viewing audience to take in. Time periods are crossed and fantasy and reality are blurred. All of this makes for a difficult watch of something that is attempting to cover too many interesting issues in a short span of time.
Lavender Men opens in limited theatrical release this week.
What do you think? Does this sound like something you’d want to check out?
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This was an ambitious film which probably worked better in its original incarnation as a play. The performers are all quite good and the concept is interesting, but you are right, there is a stage-y quality to it that makes hard to stick with.