This movie really does have everything you can need in an LGBT+ film - it's life-affirming joy that makes you want to head straight back into the movie theatre.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 26, 2021

At its core, watchable.

| May 15, 2020

In the end, I still enjoyed it because there were a lot of fabulous things and a lot of heart.

| May 15, 2020

It has all the nuance of a sharpie-scrawled slur on a locker. It's pacing is atrocious with scenes colliding together like drunken brunchers, without grace or intention.

| May 25, 2019

It's hear is absolutely in the right place... I wish I liked it more. I found the film itself was very clumsily told.

| Aug 28, 2018

The over-arching themes of Trudie Styler's debut feature, Freak Show, are tolerance, inclusion and acceptance, and they're pretty much impossible to argue with.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 27, 2018

A drama so forced, all good intentions are forgotten by the umpteenth clich, about six minutes in.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 26, 2018

It's good natured and well intentioned, but you end up wishing that Styler's directorial decisions were even half as bold as Billy's wardrobe.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2018

Cartoonish and clichd.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2018

It barely scratches the surface of the complex themes that it wants to explore.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2018

Lawther is subtle. The film? Not so much.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 22, 2018

Freak Show is a well-meaning story but the characters don't behave like teenagers.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2018

The soundtrack is terrific, some observations about teenage sexuality are tackled well, but overall it's a bit too "Search for the hero inside yourself" for my liking. Show, don't tell.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2018

As Billy, Lawther gives a fabulous, bravura performance - well, half bravura, half mascara.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 22, 2018

The film itself lacks the daring of its own central character as it moves into the realm of feelgood high school fantasy.

| Jun 20, 2018

The movie is tiresome and supercilious almost all of the time, and Lawther's performance is directed with a heavy hand.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 20, 2018

"Freak Show" is a hot mess with good intentions.

| Original Score: C- | Jun 20, 2018

That all said, Billy's story still has power and could still be a comfort to those fighting their own battles against bullying, and there's real inspiration in his refusal to be anyone other than who he is.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 20, 2018

"Freak Show" is carried by a fully committed performance from Lawther, who quivers and swans and roars like the best of the Hollywood grand dames.

| Jun 20, 2018

Billy's schoolmates are either implausible (the jock who quotes Oscar Wilde) or one-dimensional (Abigail Breslin's Trump-ite cheerleader who insists 'all gays are going to hell'), though Laverne Cox lights up the screen with a fleeting cameo.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 20, 2018