Layla review – Amrou Al-Kadhi’s queer club romance is a sparkling, sensual spectacle

Pebble-dashed with rhinestones, teetering on Lucite heels and topped with an ice-cream-whip wig, non-binary British-Palestinian drag artist Layla (a terrific, tender turn by Bilal Hasna) has a look that embraces artifice. But Layla is no fake: they are magnificently and authentically themself, down to the last set of inch-long tinsel lashes.

It’s not without a cost, this hard-won personal truth. Layla has found their tribe – and it’s here that first-time director Amrou Al-Kadhi, also a drag artist, excels, capturing the sparkling, sensual spectacle of the queer club circuit, a second home for Layla’s gang, and also the fiercely protective love that binds together this chosen family. But Layla has another family – the caring yet conservative Muslim parents who still know them as Latif, and a sister who can’t understand why she is being kept at arm’s length. Here, the parallels with Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd’s recent “gaysian” drag romance Unicorns are particularly conspicuous, although Layla is less about making peace with the past than it is about staying true to the present.

Layla craves romance, and when they fall, they fall hard – for pretty but conventional Max (Louis Greatorex, bringing a gauche charm to a character deliberately written to be bland). They meet at a corporate Pride bash: Max is the event coordinator; Layla is the hired entertainment for an opportunistic ready-meal company called Fork Me. But while Max is fascinated by the 24/7 excitement of spending time with Layla, he prefers a little less drama in a potential long-term relationship. Smitten, Layla obligingly tones down their personality, much to the horror of their friends.

Costume design, by Cobbie Yates, is glorious throughout, with an exuberant free rein given to Layla’s drag creations. But perhaps the most powerful choice is the grey linen shirt that Layla wears for a dinner that turns out to be their relationship rock bottom. On anyone else it would be neat, neutral and inoffensive. On Layla, it’s an admission of defeat.

• In UK and Irish cinemas