Soft Lad

22-year-old David has a shameful secret: he’s been sleeping with his sister’s husband. Leon Lopez’s indie gay drama details the fallout.

22-year-old David has a shameful secret: he’s been sleeping with his sister’s husband, Jules. When he begins a new and more wholesome relationship with Sam, the rejected Jules is affronted, and during an evening of startling revelations David finds everything he holds dear on the precipice.

Leon Lopez’s Liverpool-set drama concisely examines the moral consequences of sex and relationships. A commendable and truly independent production, it arose from collaboration between various talents from TV soaps such as Brookside. But the result is clearly a film that transcends its televisual origins, with Craig Stein’s performance as Sam particularly imparting class and charm, marking him out as a talent worth watching. Soft Lad is being distributed as part of POUT Fest 2015, a touring and online film festival from Peccadillo Pictures, supported by the BFI.