Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
Q, is a decent student who tries to do his best but somehow always misses by a whisker and ends up second. His mother runs a bakery business and wants Q to talk to his senior Mook, a social media influencer, for promotion. But Q is scared and he sees that she always hangs out with her friend X. X challenges Q on his loser status and says that if he can get Mook to invite Q to the big school event in 21 days, he will accept defeat. Q, along with his 2 friends try to come up with a strategy to get Mook's attention, but in the process one day by mistake X gets into an accident. Q feels guilty and he starts taking care of X and the both soon start getting close. Meanwhile, Q's friend is doing many things to get Mook's attention, and attention she gives, but in the process its Q's friend who starts getting feelings for her. Slowly Q and X start to have more than feelings for one another and one day they end up confessing. Q's mother suspects of her son's sexuality but since her brother is also gay, who makes her understand how important it is to have understanding parents, she also comes around. Eventually even though Q doesn't win the bet, but all individuals find pure love in their own way.
There is a lot that happens in these 4 episodes and I actually liked isa lot. Sure, at places it felt rushed, but I personally thought its a good thing because never even for once it digressed form the core focus of the story. Having said that, I think the scenes of Q with his 2 friends were a lot more interesting and goofy in someways compared to his scenes with X, where romance and drama sometimes crept in. The story is almost predictable where you can guess that it will be Q's friend who will eventually win over Mook. The biggest surprise was the other nerdy friend and you think he has a crush on his tutor but turns out so different and so refreshing actually. The makers also do a good education and balance of internal homophobia with the mother and uncle episode. The storyline is nothing new. Its basic but somehow a refreshing treatment keeps it engaging. Acting overall by everyone is quite alright. No one person stands out, but thats ok. Most characters have been shown positive and thankfully the girls here were not made villains for no reason. Everyone is capable of distinguishing between what's important and what's not. There is a little bit drama that gets added towards the end when Q thinks that X has some elaborate plan to play with his emotions and thats when the show tells us why and how communication in every relationship is important. Overall this show may not stick in your memories for long, but while watching, it had me engaged and kept ay attention and for a change I found myself enjoying the teenage romantic drama, only because it was so focused on what it wanted to say. (7/10)
Comments
Mother and uncle conversations were actually really nice and like you said, very unlike what we are used to seeing in Thai BL. Although I do have to say that the uncle was annoying in an odd sense of way. I can't out my fingers exactly
This was definitely a pleasant little surprise.