Director's statement:
As a filmmaker I have always been drawn to human desire and connection. Wicked Men explores this between two closeted gay men in the 1930s, during a time when homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom. Both Rex and Anthony work in the public eye to different extents, which means their love to one another threatens everything that they have built for themselves.
As a gay man myself, I’ve always felt that the search for romantic connection is more of a challenge for queer people. There are always more obstacles that we face when trying to find human connection, including coming out, general homophobia, legislation, insecurity and sometimes internalized homophobia. I think every queer person has had to deal with one of these obstacles in one of their relationships, and being able to explore this on screen is something I’ve been wanting to do since I began making films.
One of my guilty pleasure tropes in storytelling is “Forbidden Love”. My love for it came to be from watching Attack of the Clones as a child, to being introduced to Romeo and Juliet in Year 6 along with the Baz Luhrman adaptation. The concept of breaking the rules for love seemed so romantic to me as a child. Being able to take this trope and combine it with my own experiences and my love for melodrama was genuinely one of the greatest times I’ve had lying in bed on FinalDraft.
With Wicked Men I wanted to take two characters that live within the public eye, in a time where homosexuality was criminalized and ostracized, which felt like the perfect framework for me to explore the challenges of queer desire. Here the stakes feel grand yet still deeply personal as we explore Rex and Anthony’s unsynchronized love and devotion for one another. As a writer it was important for me to focus on the characters' behaviour and intimacy with one another. I wanted their physical actions to tell as much of the story as the dialogue, with small glances and pieces of body language that gave extra insight into the characters. I want this film to showcase an epic love story while still remaining a tightly paced and effective short film.
