Beauty Review

Even though he engages in gay orgies and fancies an old friend’s son, South African family man Deon Lotz is as homophobic as he is unregenerately racist. However, obsession gets the better of him and he starts stalking the unsuspecting Charlie Keegan around Cape Town until daughter Roeline Daneel becomes suspicious. Tackling a contentious topic with sensitivity rather than sensationalism, this study of suppressed lust and post-apartheid fury occasionally comes close to pushing its political luck in discussing the emasculation of the Afrikaaner buck. Director Oliver Hermanus also allows the odd scene to drift. But his compositional sense is exceptional and the aura of seething frustration and grounded performances (notably Lotz) make this as insightful as it is intriguing.