Pretty Red Dress

I try to go to the cinema regularly. I am unlikely to chose a summer blockbuster, or anything designed to scare. I like character studies and close-ups more than special effects. I like relationships under a microscope.

The British Film Industry excels in selling a particular view of class-ridden society, usually wrapped in tourist marketing of pretty rural landscapes. Everything is small scale - like a miniature designed to hang from a locket.

Small budget British films rarely exude glamour. They often tell the story of the plucky underdog. A heart-warming genre - but hardly a risk.

And then sometimes, it does something completely different. This time it was a different kind of miniature - a claustrophic, minute study of the smallest family unit - mother, father and daughter. It was stressed and stretched in all directions. It was a gamble all wrapped up in a red dress.

In Pretty Red Dress (2023 – directed by Dionne Edwards), the dress is a provocation, a catalyst, a question. It asks – You get me?

That question - you get me? - is at the centre of all the relationships. But it is wrapped up in a pretty red dress. The dress is an aspiration. It is a muse. It is Tina Turner. It is the desire to feel pretty. It is shame. It is the chasm of difference between a mother and a daughter.

Candice (Alexandra Burke) is a singer about to audition for the role of a lifetime. Her teen daughter, Kenisha (Temilola Olatunbosum, played with all that intriguing teenage mix of insight and stroppiness) is struggling at school and her partner, Travis (Natey Jones) is just out of prison, limping with his ankle tag.

In a film of characters that struggle to articulate identity and emotions the red dress works hard. It is desire. It is worn. It is work. It is stroked. It is stretched. It is secrets. It is ripped. It is shame. It is repaired. It is music.

Alexander Burke and Natey Jones aren’t the first performers to sway and seduce in a pretty red dress, to let their emotions sway in scarlet. Pretty Red Dress is the latest in a long line of films that showcase the sly and subversive charm of red.

Even in black and white, red spells danger. Bette Davis – a Jezebel – the red dress is shock, spite and scandal. Wearing red is a short cut to understanding the strong-will of Julie Marsden. It is a warning to those around her.

Gentleman prefer blondes with a red lip and a thigh-high split. Glittering and sparkling in red the showgirls deliver their statement of purpose as Two Little Girls from Little Rock.

Givenchy running down the steps of the Louvre transforms a Funny Face frump into fashion model. Funny Face is a film for the fashion lover. It formalised Hepburn's relationship with Givenchy.

What else would Jessica Rabbit wear? She can’t help it - she was drawn that way. The ultimate animated sex bomb. She is voiced by Kathleen Turner and wears a gravity-defying red dress.

And me on stage. Making jokes. Being filthy rude. I’m funny and cheeky in red. It shouts notice me. Pink to make the boys wink. But red is the colour of the show-off. You get me?

Pretty Red Dress is a low-budget, off-key film, that tells a story that is rarely shown on film. But it deserves to be noticed.

Sometimes we have music. Sometimes we have words. Sometimes we can get the small gestures right. And sometimes no matter how big the emotions, no matter how much we struggle to express our humanity, all we have is a pretty red dress.