‘Nothing else quite like it’: why DEBS is my feelgood movie

The next pick in our series of writers highlighting their favourite comfort watches is a box office dud from the 2000s that became a queer cult classic“Are you kidding me?” snaps Ms Petrie, Holland Taylor’s power-suit loving intelligence chief, towards the end of the 2004 spy satire DEBS. “We conduct a nationwide manhunt for you, and you’re boning the suspect?!”In a nutshell, this is the basic premise of Angela Robinson’s 2004 debut feature film, a critically panned box office flop which has transformed into a cult classic over the last 20 years thanks to its refreshing and cheery nonchalance towards the subject of sexuality. The heavily sanitised trailer, which erased virtually all evidence of a sapphic storyline, meant that DEBS passed me by for years. Now, I’m making up for lost time. Continue reading...

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