‘Steal Away’ is a classic queer story

Clement Virgo’s innovation on a tried-and-true formula couldn’t be more relevant

Last year saw the protection of marginalized Americans continue to diminish. A U.S. federal appeals court lifted the injunction that blocked the Trump administration from ending Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. This resulted in Americans losing access to insurance for the live-saving services Planned Parenthood offers.

Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood resumed last week, but these decisions coincide with a rise in book bans featuring LGBTQ2S+ and racialized stories, as well as an increase in ICE agents racially profiling civilians to fatal ends. A growing fear looms of what the future holds for society’s most vulnerable. With the visibility of marginalized lives becoming increasingly dangerous, how can people explore their identities freely and safely?

This is a question director Clement Virgo’s new film Steal Away poses. Fusing dystopia, coming of age and psychological horror, Steal Away captures the emotional terrors of adolescence under an authoritarian regime. The story juxtaposes the journeys of Fanny (played by Angourie Rice), a privileged but sheltered white teen navigating a sexual awakening, and Cécile (Mallori Johnson), a Black migrant embracing sexual liberation.

As the girls develop a complicated bond, disturbing truths about Fanny’s family emerge that place her and Cécile’s lives in jeopardy. The film is loosely inspired by Karolyn Smardz Frost’s non-fiction book Steal Away Home, which is set in antebellum Kentucky. Steal Away pivots from its

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source material by taking place in an ambiguous time and location. In the film, racialized folks are heavily surveilled based on an intolerance toward the undocumented. Sex in this community is stigmatized unless its citizens are in a heterosexual marriage or planning to have children. By drawing parallels to real-life events from our past and present, Steal Away shows that the excitement and pain of identity exploration remain timeless. What struck me about the film was the queer subtext within Fanny’s character. Raised by her single mother Florence (Lauren Lee Smith), Fanny is torn between following her family’s restrictive lifestyle that promotes patriarchal values and minimizes her free will, or pivoting from these norms to define her own identity. According to psychologist Vivienne Cass, queer folks navigate sexual exploration in six different stages known as the Identity Model....

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