ASSAAD YACOUB

Bil’s rating (out of 5): 0.5.  USA, 2017.  Screenplay by Nick Landa.  Cinematography by Diego Gilly.  Produced by Alex Lampsos, Assaad Yacoub.  Music by Shayna Ferm, Wendy Jo Smith.  Production Design by Juli Kunke.  Film Editing by Nick Landa.  Podcast:  Bad Gay Movies.

Lars Berge shows up at the Cherry Pop night club looking to pursue his dream of becoming a singer. He believes that this dive of a drag bar with only a handful of customers is the perfect place to get his goals on the road, but he walks into the middle of a crisis: the queen of queens, “Zaza”, is depressed in her dressing room and refuses to come out. The club’s specialty is popping a drag “cherry” every night, getting someone new to perform for the first time, and our hero is the one who is going to be initiated on this particular evening, but has trouble finding his way to the stage when the other queens who perform there, who are all as catty you love them to be, treat him like a leper when they find out that he’s got a girl waiting for him at home and not a man. Meanwhile the club’s owner tries to solve the Zaza problem in time for her performance in this tone-deaf comedy adapted by Assaad Yacoub and Nick Landa from their short film of the same name. There are a few genuine laughs thanks to the cast of mostly Drag Race alumnae, but it’s amazing how out of touch this film is with the sense of vibrancy that accompanies the world of drag performance: why is this “Cherry Pop” ritual so important when there’s only three people in the audience who don’t care, and why is it that when Berge’s character finally gets his moment to shine, he isn’t any good? Lots of question arise in eighty very long minutes in this poorly directed, badly photographed misfire.