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...
Movie starts with Natalie having discovered that her husband Ernesto is having an affair and invites the person to the house. She is shocked to see that the person is actually a young boy and that her husband was cheating on her with a man. Daniel is a part-time sex worker, and Ernesto paid for his company before love began to bloom between the two as time went on, a love that was conditional on Ernesto continuing with his marriage. Just as she plans to confront him, she gets the news that her husband had had a stroke and is in hospital, she rushes there. Daniel hears it and also goes. Over the course of next few days, these two people connect on the tragedy but at a superficial level. As they wait in the ICU, tensions rise, emotions unravel, and the two are forced to navigate their complex feelings—grief, betrayal, and unexpected connection—while confronting the uncertain future of the man they both love. Ernesto is soon moved to a private room, where we get to know a little bit about his roommate(s). Eventually when Ernesto wakes up, he asks for forgiveness, but eventually the wife wins over and gets to take back him home. Ernesto will likely be left lonely but ending leaves us hopeful.
As I said before, I wonder of the idea here was to make a dark comedy but it fails. I say that because you get to hear the interactions between two nurses, which are absurd; then Natalie meets a woman whose daughter has cancer and they share secret or jus the whole premise of a man, his wife and boyfriend in a hospital environment itself. It did not feel comedy to me but at the same time, the drama as well did not engage me. It struggles with the deeper themes of identity, deception, and authenticity versus insincerity. As far as performances go, both Natalie and Daniel do a great job. She is the confident yet fractures and wronged wife desperately searching for answers and her potential future while Daniel is a boy who believes he has found love but, in reality, remains alone: a male concubine who Ernesto loves but equally shuns in favor of his façade of heterosexuality. If this was to be a dramedy, it did not work for me and the direction needs a lot of work. It was quite superficial while never really making s understand the conflicts that these two people face, their love, their guilt. And we definitely do not get to see anything at all from Ernesto's perspective. (4/10)
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