Chuck Chuck Baby

Chuck Chuck Baby
(photo modified)

Chuck Chuck Baby, dir. Janis Pugh, 2023 United Kingdom, 101 min. 💖

Saturday, June 22, 2024, 3:30 PM, Roxie (not streaming)

Frameline’s description: “British writer/director Janis Pugh made a huge splash at the Toronto and Palm Springs International Film Festivals (to name a few) with Chuck Chuck Baby, a singular combination of a classic lesbian romance with an unconventional jukebox musical set in a Welsh chicken factory.

“Living with her ex-husband and his family, Helen (Sherlock’s Louise Brealey) finds relief in two places: the cathartic throes of music and, surprisingly, at the local chicken factory — thanks in large part to the tight-knit group of working-class women who toil alongside her. Hollowed by loss, Helen’s former crush Joanne (an ever-charming Annabel Scholey) returns to the small town. 

Chuck Chuck Baby
(inside the factory)

“While Helen and Joanne woo each other, they rekindle an adolescent love that never was, allowing Pugh to beautifully render the simultaneously fleeting-yet-unending feeling of a first queer love. Infused with humor and warmth throughout, Chuck Chuck Baby’s musical moments underscore its strengths. While the film’s characters may relish the escapism, viewers who have starred in the music videos of their imagination will find Pugh’s grounded approach stunningly relatable.”

My thoughts: When you think of a setting for a musical love story, what could be better than a dreary chicken packing plant in a dead-end town in northern Wales? Sometimes bleak, sometimes effusively joyous, but always heartfelt, with a fabulous soundtrack. MUST SEE.

[Note: the upper photograph was cropped both from the sides and from the middle to fit the format constraints of the blog.]

• IMDb • Official website • Filmmaker • Twitter: @ChuckChuckFilm • Instagram • Facebook • preview • Rotten Tomatoes: 100% •