Lavender Men (2025)- A Proclamation Of Excellence And One Of My Favorites This Year

I’ve really only seen one movie before this that I thought had the chance of being in my top films of 2025 list. It is a sad statistic considering that I’m not that far from 100 titles in 2025, and only one title has audio description and could also land on that list. However, I have to say that Lavender Men has made an excellent case as to why it should be included even without audio description. I think this is one of the brightest, boldest, and most audacious original films I’ve seen in a while. it has a fraction of the buzz surrounding it like American Fiction or Dear White People, so the better comparison is last year’s The People’s joker, which lacked in celebrity, but made up for it in endearment of its target audience.

Lavender Men relishes in all the queerness that could have been, and tackles a lot of current themes of gender identity and sexuality while also exploring a what might have been for Abraham Lincoln. Of course, Lincoln is one of the historical figures in real life that there has been a conversation on what his sexuality might have been, and this film imagines a relationship he has with a younger man who is a friend, a soldier, and an assistant.

But how the film does this is what makes it so damn intriguing. Clearly relishing in its own budget constraints, we see a play being put on and actors working out those very themes. At the same theater, working front of house is Taffeta, a wickedly funny lead character with whom we fever dream a chance for the “real’ Lincoln to rewrite his future, and possibly change the destiny of his one true love. But, this is all in Taffeta’s world, and what they say goes. They can promise a rewrite, but they can also decide they aren’t bothered by the ailments of privileged white men of the civil war. Taffeta ends up playing several roles in their historic hallucination, which allows them a breakthrough in catharsis. Through the perceived queerness of a dead president, Taffeta muses on how they are often discarded among the LGBTQ community who are looking for something decidedly not Taffeta. it serves as a reminder of all those Grindr specifics around “no femms”, “bears only”, or “white only” leaves our community fractured and disenfranchised within its own disenfranchisement. to be part of the societally discarded, and to then have a complicated structure of what your dating profile allows leaves people like taffeta, who exist somewhere in the middle of everything, while also being on the outside of everyone, decidedly out of the question altogether. So, Taffeta, even while exploring the fancy of Lincoln’s presumed identity, also really has no time for it. taffeta has 99 problems, and Abraham Lincoln ain’t one. or, in the words of mama Ru, Taffeta, you stay, Abe, sachet away.

The movie is directed with exuberance by Lovell Holder, who has all the ability to be the next Court Jefferson. After all, not only did they direct, but they also co-wrote the script with roger Q, and while it is essentially transforming a play from stage to film, there’s this rainbow of originality in how the movie is executed that sets aside the notion of an adaptation, and celebrates the idea getting on the screen in such an uncompromising manner.

Really, my only complaint is that as a blind film critic, this doesn’t have audio description, so there’s just a little gap between myself and my ability to fully embrace all that this film is. But, truthfully, I haven’t seen a film yet this year that I want to root for more, or champion more than Lavender men. I just would have a hard time asking any blind or low vision individual to ignore their own accessibility needs. I did understand the majority of the film, and I feel confident the sections without dialogue are of the same energy as the rest of the project, but accessibility matters, and while this film celebrates representation in a most specific form, i also have to celebrate my own incredibly niche representation.

Without a doubt, Lavender Men is one of the best films of the year.

Fresh: Final Grade: A, Audio Description: N/A