‘Jim Queen’ review: Cheeky French animation proves an irreverent celebration of LGBTQ+ culture

Dirs: Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athane. France/Belgium. 2025. 85mins

A gay influencer’s perfect life is threatened by a virus that is turning the whole world straight in Jim Queen, an irreverent celebration of LGBTQ+ culture. Boasting fetching tunes and appealing animation, Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athane’s feature directorial debut may be a little thin narratively but is otherwise an amusing time, poking fun at everything from gay men’s fixation on their physique to straight men’s obsession with sports.

Takes aim at myriad gay and straight cliches

Jim Queen screens as part of Cannes’ midnight section before opening in France on June 17. The film should find further festival play and could enjoy cult success similar to another charming, low-budget queer-themed animation, 2025’s Lesbian Space Princess.

Parisian influencer Jim Perfect (voiced by Alex Ramires) has millions of followers on social media, where he is worshipped as a sex symbol for his dashing good looks, shapely butt and exquisite chest hair. But he becomes alarmed when one of his abs disappears, and then another. Jim learns that he has contracted Heterosis, a highly contagious virus that leaves its victims feeling terminally heterosexual. Scared to lose his identity as a gay man — and panicking that he’s shedding followers, who no longer consider him a queer icon — he teams up with Lucien (Jeremy Gillet), an ineffectual, closeted early-twentysomething who has a massive crush on him, to track down the mysterious Dr. Ragoo, who may have a cure for this disease.

From the opening shots, in which a collection of buff gay men feverishly work out at the gym, the camera playfully lingering over their bodies, Jim Queen announces its impish spirit. Jim is massively self-absorbed, but Ramires imbues him with a touch of insecurity so he’s always likeable no matter how conceited he behaves. No wonder it’s so delicious when Jim is stricken with Heterosis, which inflicts him with the typical straight male’s lack of concern for staying in shape. Developing a gut is as disturbing to Jim as being told he’ll never enjoy another anal orgasm.

Jim Queen takes aim at myriad gay and straight cliches, also making room for some primo puns. (Beware of the ’Gaystapo’, who have severe methods for converting Heterosis-affected gay men back into pure homosexuals.) Snark and sweetness coexist, such as when the yearning Lucien is introduced in a musical number that nimbly parodies Ariel’s ‘Part Of Your World’ ballad from The Little Mermaid, except with many more references to sex toys. And while the film pointedly critiques the scourge of homophobia and conservative politicians’ desire to erase queerness from modern life, the rise of Heterosis is treated with tongue-in-cheek lightheartedness.

Nguyen and Athane, who are also two of the film’s four credited writers, resist the urge to incessantly try to outdo themselves in terms of their script’s outrageous sexual humour. Instead, the jokes cover a wide range of topics, with several choice bits involving Jim charting his level of heterosexuality by his alarming rise in knowledge about the rules of soccer. The plot risks turning episodic, but the filmmakers do a good job fleshing out their imaginative world of drag queens, sneaker fetishists and moral watchdogs (including Lucien’s bigoted mother, and France’s minister of health, voiced by Elisabeth Wiener). Paris’ LGTBQ+ bear community is depicted as literal bears and, for a change, it’s the hetero-positive who are mocked and shamed for their “unnatural” lifestyle.

Amidst Jim Queen’s pulsating dance tracks and out-and-proud characters, the picture also slips in a little sincerity. The gorgeous Jim must contend with Lucien’s romantic feelings, although he considers himself far too cool for this awkward younger man. Meanwhile, as Jim becomes more and more straight, he begins to be attracted to his platonic best friend Nina (Shirley Souagnon), which complicates their relationship since she’s actually always been in love with him. Without getting too sappy or strident, Jim Queen explores how sexual fluidity can open up exciting possibilities but also break people’s hearts. In the case of this cheeky picture, it can be pretty funny, too.