It is told with exceptional attention to detail and beautiful craft. The film follows a wealthy 1950s repressed housewife (Cate Blanchett) and her affair with a younger paramour (Rooney Mara), herself in a loveless heterosexual relationship. Nowadays, it is rightfully seen as just a regular ol’ classic and deserved winner of four Academy Awards.ĭirector Todd Haynes and writer Phyllis Nagy took a chance at adapting a definitive work of lesbian pulp literature (Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt) for the arthouse and it paid off. For a low-budget indie, Alaska is a Drag looks and sounds great, and its cast have a charming naturalism that suits its setting of a small town on the brink of progressiveness.īrokeback Mountain (2005) Watch on NetflixĪng Lee’s groundbreaking Brokeback Mountain has had to weather all the ‘gay cowboys eating pudding’ jokes and survive the mainstream culture’s homophobic response to the very idea of two men (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) having sex on screen (even if it was in a dark tent).
Rather, Shaz Bennett’s debut feature is a charming coming-of-age drama, the likes of which went out of fashion in the 1990s.
This is not a documentary about iconic drag queen Alaska Thunderf*ck 5000 (but note to Netflix, we would watch that!).
