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Three moons are shining bright in the sky over the castle. Fearsome guards in eerie gold masks are standing by. And in the secrecy of the grand bedchamber, breathy lady of the manor Cherry (Maika Monroe) is being seduced by her phlegmatic maid Hero (Emma Corrin). The world of director Julia Jackman's queer fable (based on Isabel Greenberg's feminist graphic novel on the same name) is extravagant and strange, blending misty-lensed period drama cliché with surreal Derek Jarman-esque aesthetics and eccentric cameos, including Charli xcx as a witch strumming a vaginal guitar. Still, there's something oddly restrained about her storytelling, which sucks the passion out of this fantastical tale.
Greenberg's original illustrations depicted the weird old world she's dreamt up with a scrappiness and affectionate wit that's often missing here. Instead, Jackman focuses on heightening the moody grimness and eccentric details of this patriarchal dystopia.
We open with tyrannical deity Birdman (Richard E Grant) stomping around, insisting that women know their place – which is looking pretty, having babies, and certainly not developing any ideas of their own. This doesn't bode well for Cherry. Her new husband Jerome (Amir El-Masry) refuses to sleep with her, even though she'll be put to death by the powers that be if she fails to get pregnant. Then, this charming chap decides to make a bet with his Mills and Boon cover-worthy guy friend Manfred (The Idea of You’s Nicholas Galitzine). If this visiting stud can bed his wife, he gets the castle.
Less an exercise in storytelling and more a succession of stained glass windows
There's a gentle visual humour to Manfred's seduction attempts. He turns up with a bare chest dripping in bright red blood, clutching a stag's head which has clearly been ripped right off a wooden wall mount, rather than hunted down in the forest in appropriately macho style. But Cherry still swoons over him, and it's up to pragmatic Hero to save the day.
In a kind of queer riff on the story of Scheherazade, Hero decides to tell a story every time it looks like Cherry’s willpower is fading. Her tales centre on three sisters who learn the forbidden skill of writing, and pay for it bitterly. There's a lightly Middle Eastern feel to these scenes, gesturing to countries where female knowledge is still being punished by death.
Perhaps Jackman is too uncomfortably aware of this story’s grave real life parallels to truly have fun with it. The film's pace lags, and Corrin and Monroe's courtship is chemistry-filled but under-consummated by a slightly joyless ending. And the gorgeous aesthetic keeps things surfacey – feminist ideas are referenced, rather than lived and felt. This film is less a fully fledged exercise in storytelling, and more a succession of stained glass windows, sumptuous enough that you almost forget the dark stories they depict.
In UK and Ireland cinemas now.