Pretty Red Dress is a debut feature starring a one-time X Factor winner so, you know, kill me now. But it’s a thin week and I’ll cut it some slack and be kind, like it says on the T-shirts. That was my thinking, because, as is now obvious, I can be a patronising fool. This is a terrific film. It’s original, has heft, is magnificently performed, and it blew me away.
The writer-director is Dionne Edwards who, as I also now know, was named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow in 2019. One of her shorts, We Love Moses, is available on Disney+ and it is totally worth 15 minutes of your time. The X Factor winner isn’t Harry Styles, for once, but Alexandra Burke, who triumphed in 2008. Here, she plays Candice, who works in a supermarket but dreams of becoming a West End star. And it’s not far-fetched: she’s up for playing Tina Turner in a big musical with only a few auditions to go.
Meanwhile, her partner, Travis (Natey Jones), has just been released from a year in prison and they have a teenage daughter, Kenisha (Temilola Olatunbosun), who is academically gifted but having trouble at school.
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