LUMI Reviews: BFF: Fucktoys is must watch queer cinema!

To say I was sick with jealousy as I left my screening of Fucktoys would be an understatement. Not only did Annapurna Sriram write, direct and star in this film, but it’s her feature film debut too. And it’s incredible! Like, save some for the rest of us, am I right? In all seriousness, it was an absolute pleasure to experience a film like Fucktoys on the big screen, in all of its surreal and campy glory.

The film follows a young sex worker, AP, who visits a psychic only to be informed that she is cursed. But no worries, it’s an easy fix. All she needs is $1000 and to kill a baby lamb. Problem solved. What follows is a sort of queer odyssey, as AP and her twin flame Danni travel across Trashtown, USA in order to find the money and break the curse.

Fucktoys has all the makings of a modern camp masterpiece. It’s sexy, it’s raunchy, it’s unabashed in its depiction of queerness, all wrapped up in this bright and bubbly colour palette. And it has multiple intervening psychics, each one being more outrageous than the last. What more could you possibly want from a film? It’s easy to see where Sriram pulls inspiration from camp auteur John Waters. But this pivot to a more femme leaning style of camp brings a refreshing new take to the genre.

In an interview with ArtsFuse, Sriram talks about what camp means to her and how she has implemented it in her film. She says that when done right, it’s: “high end absurdism bringing attention to very real things”, which Sriram does with ease.

The most obvious example of this would be the set dressing of AP’s bedroom. Except, it’s not a room: it’s an open field with furniture in it. Lit in this beautiful golden light, giving the scenes here an ethereal quality. To further the absurdity, AP’s closet consists of multiples of the same outfit, the outfit she wears throughout the film. There is even a comical “getting ready” sequence that ends with AP emerging wearing the exact same clothes. She’s like a cartoon. But it’s in the absurdity of this scene that it hits you. She doesn’t need multiple outfits to do the work that she does, she only needs one. And society has already ostracised her and branded her as a sex worker so in her mind, why change? When the campiness is stripped away, the instability in her own life is symbolised by her living space, or in this case lack thereof. It’s in these moments that the theses of the film become crystal clear: issues of social class and sex work.

The theme of sex work and the treatment of sex workers dominates the film, and I think it’s important to see this kind of representation in a post Anora world. Especially told by someone who has first hand experiences from this community and has the passion for this story to be told.

The sex work in this film, while stylised, is far from glamourised. It’s dingy crack dens. It’s being underpaid, or not paid at all. It’s punching a celebrity in the face after being asked to sign an NDA. It’s a lot of pee. It’s the overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia at the coke-fuelled orgy for the elderly. AP grows more exhausted as the film goes on but is spurred on by her curse, by this desperate urgency for the money that will magically solve her problems. AP’s character arc forces her into increasingly dangerous situations as the film progresses, ending with an encounter that almost costs her life.

In the year of our lord 2025, I don’t think it’s revolutionary to acknowledge that we are living through a period of growing conservatism. Purity culture is slowly but surely becoming very vogue for a lot of Gen Z. Everything has to be “cosy” or “clean” or any other patronising word in the dictionary. Everything needs to be nipped and tucked and filled and fixed. A generation petrified by imperfection.

As a society, we need a film like Fucktoys. A film that is unafraid to be as brazen and as filthy as it is. It’s campy, it’s stylish, it’s a middle finger to an establishment that would much rather we were back to following the Hays Code.

I look forward to seeing what Annapurna Sriram comes up with next. Because I will be equal parts excited and raging that I didn’t come up with it first.