Stud Life

With its focus on queer character exploration rather than plot, Stud Life‘s main issue is one of medium. The characters here could’ve inhabited a trendy and relatable E4 dramedy series from the era. As a film, there’s too much character work to comfortably fit and not enough plot to glue it all together.

Stud Life’s lead character is JJ, a black stud lesbian. JJ’s closest friend is a white, effeminate gay man named Seb. Both JJ and Seb long for romantic relationships and search for them online and at local gay clubs. One such club is where JJ first meets Elle, a confident and sexy femme. But as JJ and Elle fall into a relationship, Elle begins to co-opt all of JJ’s time and dislikes JJ’s friendship with Seb. However, their actual breakup comes when Elle reveals she works as a dominatrix for men. Unable to handle this, JJ leaves. However, Seb himself has recently found love and encourages JJ to work things out with Elle.

Stud Life clearly comes from a desire to see representation. JJ’s identity as a black stone butch lesbian gets majority focus in the film. This is great to see. JJ’s identities are not often given onscreen representation. Black leads are still go heavily underrepresented in WLW film. Properly butch leads are rare too. Onscreen depictions of queer women veer so femme that a “butch” character often means little else than a woman with short hair. There’s more to the butch identity than that. The characterization of JJ and these facets of her identities are the most successful part of the film. Not only is JJ likable and extremely cool but she feels very real. The film is also very good at informing and teaching its audiences about these identities. Because JJ feels realistic and cool, it really helps keep these moments from feeling preachy or patronizing.

The film is also great at simultaneously celebrating JJ’s identity while also outlining the negative attention that these identities sometimes get. A woman accosts JJ in a female bathroom because of her gender presentation. She’s also gay bashed in her own neighbourhood. The film does not shy away that existing at the intersection of being black, queer and gender non-conforming isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. But it’s great at balancing these realistic concerns with people who celebrate and supports JJ’s identity. After JJ is accosted in the bathroom, Elle walks in for a sexy piece of flirtation. And when JJ is attacked, her nearby parents come to the rescue and offer her comfort and support.

But all this character focus does make the film feel like a TV pilot. Stud Life struggles with pacing and conflict. It spends nearly half the movie without much conflict and then overcompensates with a break-up scene so dramatic it doesn’t fit the rest of the movie. Individual scenes in Stud Life work extremely well on an on-paper basis. But the film fails to make these strong individual scenes tie together.

JJ and Elle’s relationship starts very romantic before taking a quick dip into concerning territory. Seb warned JJ from the start about Elle. Elle then proves Seb’s concerns right when she tries to come between them as friends and makes disparaging comments about Seb being gay. Neither Elle nor JJ come out looking great during the dramatic breakup scene. JJ’s reaction gets pretty anti-sex work which isn’t great. But Elle tries to prevent JJ leaving and physically hits her. Yet after the breakup, Seb is suddenly on the side of JJ should take Elle back. That’s a switch of opinion on his part and also, he’s wrong. Despite JJ and Elle working things out and ending in what is hopefully a healthier relationship, I’m not sure this couple should be together.

The directing is a problem here. There is a distinctly amateur feel to Stud Life. Part of this is mere budget constraint. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t secure a huge budget for this black butch lesbian slice of life drama. But while that’s an explanation, it doesn’t change the fact that the film isn’t great to look at or to hear. The sound mixing in Stud Life is one of the weakest aspect. And when it comes to visuals, not all of this is down to lack of budget. The framing of scenes is often weak. Just because budget necessitates using a handheld camera doesn’t mean that effort can’t be put into filling the frame with more interesting or balanced visuals. The camerawork here is just poor. The framing in some scenes was poor in a way that draws attention to itself and away from the actual action of the scene.

My final issue with Stud Life is JJ’s YouTube channel. The film occasionally cuts to vlogs JJ uploads on YouTube where she talks about romance, sex and identity. These vlogs feel like a contrived way for the director speaking through the guise of a character speaking through the guise of a vlog to state opinions she couldn’t fit into the rest of the movie. Some of these vlogs could easily be reworked as dialogue scenes. The other ones could probably just get cut. The vlog where JJ discusses sex toys and disparages people who use non-realistic sex toys doesn’t add anything to the film. If anything, it takes something away. These vlogs are uploaded to a channel named StudLifeMovie. That’s a huge immersion break. It’s clear they’ve actually uploaded these videos to a YouTube account and then screen recorded them and edited them into the film.

Stud Life has a great lead character and passion for character exploration. It really should’ve been a TV series. Despite how solid JJ is as a lead, the directing and plot of the film let her down. Stud Life’s exploration and celebration of marginalized queer identities is strong enough for me not to give this a negative review. But the medium chosen to tell this story and the quality of directing brings down Stud Life’s vibrant, likeable and realistic protagonist.

Overall rating: 5.1/10

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