Plainclothes is an indie drama starring Tom Blyth and Russell Tovy. Set in the 1990s near Syracuse, New York. The tense full-length feature follows the story of Lucas Brennan (Blyth), an undercover police officer who works in a sting operation, luring in queer men under the guise of cruising in mall bathrooms before arresting them for lewd public behavior. However, when Andrew (Tovy), a kind older gentleman, walks in as his next target, Lucas is torn between duty and desire.
This entry is going to focus on the character of Lucas. While Andrew is a closeted reverend with a family, Lucas is reeling from his breakup with his girlfriend, Emily (Amy Forsyth), and from the death of his father, Gus. It is through the discussions with Emily that we learn that Lucas has been questioning whether he is bi for some time.
When Andrew calls, Lucas hides it, but Emily recognizes his anxiety and directly references an earlier conversation in which Lucas admitted he thought he might like guys, too. His attraction to Andrew, then, is not presented as coming out of nowhere or as erasing what he felt for Emily.
Later, Lucas reveals in his final scene with Emily that he has started seeing someone new — a man. Emily is supportive and happy for him, and asserts that she can be a safe haven for him in her new work base in New York.
Lucas is a rare thing in modern cinema — a fully realized bi male lead character who does not get a tragic ending to his story. He has his strengths — he’s smart, observant, strong, and kind — as well as his flaws (fixating, abusing police resources for his own personal end).h He has hopes, dreams, and fears, and deep emotional recesses, trying to excise his anger and anxiety healthfully during panic attacks and when facing external sexual repression from his environment. But he is not a victim in this story, and works with his own sense of agency. Lucas leaves the police force from his guilt about bringing in innocent queer men for charges, confronts his homophobic uncle, and in the final scene ends up coming out (in so many words) to his mother.
In an interview with The Word: San Diego, writer-director Carmen Emmi noted that the idea for Plainclothes stemmed from his own experiences:
The idea for the film began in 2016, not long after Carmen came out. He’d read an article in the LA Times about a sting operation in Long Beach where police went undercover to arrest men for indecent exposure. ‘I had told myself it was safe to be who I was, and then I read this, and it suddenly didn’t feel safe anymore,’ he says. Around the same time, his brother was becoming a police officer, adding a layer of personal complexity to the story. ‘I’m very close to him. As he got deeper into training, I learned more about what that world was like.’
Writing Plainclothes was a way to process those feelings. ‘I spent so many years trying to stay safe — being funny, being agreeable — before anyone could ask about who I really was,’ he says. ‘When I learned about those sting operations, all of that came rushing back. I started journaling, and that’s how the character of Lucas was born.’
While the film offers a lot of verisimilitude for the time — filming Lucas’ bi gaze on both Emily and Andrew in VHS-tape footage from his point of view, basing the plot on real events, and accurate discussions of condom usage and its importance during the era — it sadly also contains a lot of bi erasure. In addition to both the internalized and environmental homophobia and biphobia within the film, both the director and stars often frame Plainclothes as a gay love story instead of a queer one. However, looking at the final product, this seems to be more of a study of a closeted bi man coming to realize his queerness than someone acting out of compulsive heteronormativity.
Plainclothes premiered at Sundance in 2025 (which was a dream of the director’s) and won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast. It was also certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, an aggregate review site.
Though the film suffers from bi erasure (not even mentioning the word “bi”), Plainclothes still has a lot to offer. It shows a nuanced, complex bi male lead who gets a bittersweet-happy ending in an era that more likely would have resulted in further isolation and loneliness. As such, it deserves recognition for significant bi male representation in modern cinema.