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Postcards From London 

DIRECTOR: Steve McLean
2018 | UK | 88m
GENRE: Arts & Literature | Biography/History | Drama | Gay | Sex Work
SECTION: World Cinema
On his first night out in London after escaping his provincial hometown, Jim is robbed and left with nothing, alone on the neon-lit streets of Soho. Fortunately, he is just what the Raconteurs have been looking for. A coterie of dapper young hustlers, the Raconteurs are immediately taken with Jim’s ethereal beauty and charming naïveté, and they adopt him as one of their own. The merry band of escorts is soon schooling Jim in the sexy delights of their specialty: using their encyclopedic knowledge of art history to bring to life the homoerotic paintings of Caravaggio, Botticelli, and Michelangelo. As Jim becomes more comfortable in his skin under the tutelage of the Raconteurs, he finds himself submerged in the world of art, becoming a muse to his patrons and customers, even while discovering that he suffers from an overwhelming sensitivity to beauty—the legendary Stendhal syndrome.

Theatrical, stylish, and visually playful, Postcards from London is a love letter to the vibrant Soho of the past, paying homage to the likes of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, James Bidgood, and Derek Jarman with its hyper-stylized, dreamy aesthetic. As Jim, the captivating Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats, Frameline41) has a face that’s a joy to watch, transporting the viewer to the hypnotic underworld of this imaginary Soho. Postcards from London is Steve McLean’s long-awaited follow-up to his seminal 1994 film, Postcards from America, which was based on the work of David Wojnarowicz.