Plainclothes is a romantic thriller drama film that sets out to capture the frenzied and inhospitable times the queer community experienced in the 1990s, pitting individual identity and repressed desires against one another. At the center of the plot is Lucas Brennan, a police officer who is tasked with the responsibility of exposing gay men at a shopping mall and keeping such ‘deviants’ away from a healthy and safe society. What Plainclothes aspires to do is genuinely commendable, and although it sometimes gets a bit too indulgent with its cinematic form, the film makes for an entertaining and touching experience.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Plainclothes begins with the stern and almost moralistic words of the law enforcement code of ethics, which state that a law enforcement officer will wholeheartedly abide by the official laws both in their professional and personal lives irrespective of what situations they might find themselves in. There is no room for making a distinction between one’s professional and personal lives in this regard, and this is a particularly tricky situation to deal with for the film’s protagonist, Lucas Brennan. It is the early 1990s, and Lucas is a police officer posted at a local shopping mall, where he is given a responsibility that was quite common back then. As a plainclothes officer, he is to identify homosexual men looking to find partners or hook-ups in public and lure them into the restroom so that they expose themselves to him, confirming their sexual orientation.
As soon as something like this happens, Lucas walks out of the restroom and signals to a colleague from the police department to arrest the man in the washroom under charges of being homosexual. The times are such that being gay is legally offensive, and it is seen as an unnatural perversion that not only destroys the social fabric but also leads to further perversions that turn normal men into violent criminals with no moral compass. Thus, there is a large-scale persecution of homosexuality, and public shopping malls are targeted by police officers, as these places are often hotspots for encounters and sexual activity. At the very beginning of the film, we witness Lucas execute a mission, as he successfully lures a man into the restroom stalls and makes him expose himself, only to then suddenly walk out and mark the man as a target to be immediately arrested.
But there is something about this job that makes Lucas quite uncomfortable and unsettled as well, as it seemingly pits him against his own internal desires. Despite his best efforts to hide it, or even not acknowledge it at all, Lucas is genuinely interested in men, not just physically, for he even hates being told that it is just a ‘phase,’ but emotionally as well. Therefore, he has to hide his true self from his colleagues and superiors, and even from himself at most times, repressing his real desires, but he finds himself in a terribly difficult dilemma when he attempts to lure in a slightly older man and almost ends up getting intimate with him. Although managing to pull away before anything regrettable happens, Lucas finds himself falling for this man, a target whom he was supposed to have arrested, Andrew Waters.
How does Lucas’ familial situation affect him?
The most noticeable characteristic about Lucas’ personality is obviously his feelings of guilt, shame, and confusion with regard to his sexual orientation, but he is also clearly struggling with other parts of his personal life, particularly his familial situation. While Plainclothes takes an almost non-linear style of narration at times, with events from the past and present shown together without any discernible differences, it is not difficult to understand that Lucas doesn’t really feel at home among his family. It is almost as if he tries to belong somewhere, at the very least to his family, but is unable to do so because of his circumstances. His father has recently passed away, and although he might not have had the best of relations with the man, he is genuinely aggrieved and heartbroken at the loss.
Memories from his childhood, when his father would shoot home videos with little Lucas as the subject, or when he would go out to refill the bird feeders in their backyard, keep playing in Lucas’ mind. Interestingly, these scenes have a very grainy and low-quality feel to them, similar to the footage from body cams that police officers wore and carried around in the 1990s. The suggestion behind this stylistic approach is to say that Lucas’ habit of suppressing his desires, and therefore his real self, has also suppressed other emotions and memories in a very normal way. Sweet memories of his father have also started to fade away and are remembered through the limited lens of his dominating identity, that of a police officer.
He is also left distressed after his father’s death because of the situation that his mother is now left in, having to spend her days alone and in denial, as she seemingly chooses to believe that her husband has only momentarily stepped out to refill the bird feeders and will soon be back again. The only family member who visits her, other than Lucas, is her brother, Paul, whom the protagonist despises because of his orthodox views, and more so because of his freeloading habits. Lucas is convinced that Paul is a good-for-nothing wastrel who only exploits the emotional situations of people in order to get their money, and he believes that Paul is now lurking around his mother only to get hold of her money. But despite his best attempts to explain this to his mother, she does not want to believe such claims or act on them.
The death of his father, and of course his developing interest in men, have led to Lucas breaking up with his girlfriend, Emily, as well, although she makes it a point to try and be a good friend to him whenever possible. It is rather Lucas who does not seem to have any interest in keeping in touch with her anymore, not out of spite or dislike, but because he somehow feels guilty for having wronged her as well, although he could not have technically helped their situation. Ultimately, Emily moves on with her life as she excels in her job as a flight attendant. But there is clearly a sense of despair, a deep-rooted depression in Lucas throughout the film, a lot of which is because of his complicated familial situation.
Did Lucas be with his desired partner?
Plainclothes is mostly about repressed desires and the inability to keep them buried below the surface forever, as they are bound to burst out at some time. This is exactly what happens with the protagonist, Lucas, who secretly feels more at home with the men who are rounded up and arrested from the shopping mall restrooms than with his hypermasculine colleagues who carry out their profession of catching gay men in the act with great joy. His deepest desires finally find a channel of expression when he has a chance encounter with a man named Andrew Waters, who shows enough interest in him, even after his rather strange switch in decision during their first meeting. Andrew is patient with Lucas, and even takes the lead despite knowing that his efforts might not bear fruit at all, but things do fall into place eventually, as the two men secretly make love passionately at a desolate flower nursery. However, this is also when Lucas realizes that the two of them have starkly different perspectives on their romantic association.
There can be no mistake about the fact that Lucas does not only want physical intimacy but a full-fledged relationship, and he quickly falls for Andrew, wanting to know him better and be with him. However, Andrew comes from a very different background and also has very different intentions. He is married and has children, and he also works at a church, as revealed later, which means that openly accepting his homosexuality would ruin his personal and professional lives in a single blow. While Lucas too is in a similar predicament, if we really think about it, he is still ready to risk it all to pursue his romantic feelings. But Andrew is older, clearly having come to terms with the idea that he will have to keep his real identity a secret from the world, and therefore has no intention of leaving his family and job. He considers Lucas only as a plaything, someone whom he pursues and gets intimate with, only to then move on with his life.
It is also possible that Andrew is a bit alarmed upon learning that Lucas is a police officer, and so he refuses to see him again, stating that their secret and illicit affair is now over, as quickly as it had begun. He is even more alarmed and outright freaks out when Lucas tracks down his address from the police database and visits his church just to speak to him. He is almost on the verge of breaking down, as he fears that Lucas will expose his secrets at his workplace and in front of his family, completely ruining his life. While all Lucas does is pursue his romantic endeavors, all while learning to come clean about his real identity and his desires, he ends up emotionally breaking the man he wants to make his partner. There is no doubt that Lucas cannot ultimately stay with his desired partner, and he will certainly never meet Andrew ever again in his life.
Does the unintended family misunderstanding lead to Lucas’ confession?
There is an unintended family misunderstanding towards the end of Plainclothes, which threatens to upend the family dynamic completely, and this twist is honestly the only thrill element in the film. During his short affair with Andrew, Lucas had been using his father’s name, Gus, as his own, simply to hide his real identity as a precaution against both being found out by the police and against the possibility of being scammed or cheated by a stranger. But after their rough breakup, Andrew had written an emotional letter to Lucas, addressing him as Gus, since this was the name that he had always known him by. As fate would have it, this letter, addressed to Gus and describing their homosexual love in great detail, had been found by Uncle Charlie and eventually was shared with Lucas’ mother as well.
This turns the whole situation around, with everyone in the family now believing that his father was secretly gay and had even had an illicit lover named Andrew. Lucas’ mother even goes to the extent of apologizing to him, as if his father had done something extremely wrong by keeping the whole matter a secret from everyone. Uncle Charlie is obviously way more treacherous in his response, stating that he would have beaten up Gus and probably even killed him, not only for having cheated on his sister, but more importantly for having been gay. As all of this takes place at a family dinner, Lucas suddenly has an outburst, which leads to him confronting Charlie and even literally throwing him out of the window before telling everyone that the letter had actually been addressed to him.
This familial misunderstanding surely plays a part in him admitting the truth in front of everyone, as Lucas also wants to save his father from slander, and rightly so. Although by now he has come to accept that being gay is not a moral crime that should ostracize one from their family, he still does not want his father’s reputation to be stained because of the supposed double life that he is now believed to have led. He wants to tell the world, and especially his own family, that Gus had not kept any secrets from his wife and kids, and therefore should not be wrongfully termed vile, especially after his death, now that he is no longer around to defend himself.
Why does Lucas really come out to his family?
But protecting his father’s reputation is definitely not the only reason that Lucas comes out to his family at the end of Plainclothes, for he now also yearns to be free from all the societal moral persecutions that have kept him restrained all his life. Having come close to Andrew and having made a really desperate attempt to be with him, Lucas has learned the extreme despair and pain a gay man would have to live with if he chooses to keep his desires and identity repressed at the most significant turns of life. He comes to the realization that it is no longer easy to call Andrew a coward, for the lives of a number of other individuals, i.e., his wife and kids, depend on him. He had made a cowardly move when he had decided to marry and settle down, keeping his orientation a secret from the world, and so Lucas does not want to make any similar moves or mistakes.
He chooses to prioritize his repressed emotions and desires over the expectations of the world. As Lucas explains everything to his family, his mother can be seen on the verge of letting out a desperate cry, as it must be difficult for her to accept this new development. Perhaps she had been in some comfort with the misinformation about her husband having been gay, only because she could accept that he was now dead and so there would not be too much of a repercussion on the family. However, now that she learns that it is Lucas who had been romantically involved with a man, it seems tougher on her, as she realizes that she and her son will now be truly ostracized from the rest of the family. But her reaction can also be seen as one leading to a secret, restrained, but proud smile, acknowledging her son’s bravery in admitting what she had perhaps known for a long time. Either way, it will not take long for Lucas and his mother to come to the understanding that it is far better and more peaceful to be ostracized from a family that cannot respect one’s individual choices than to live in constant turmoil as a plainclothes police officer out to wrongly punish the same ‘crime’ that he himself is guilty of—of loving oneself and others in a socially undesired manner.
