The film opens with an ending. Benji, a man from Manchester, is being cast off by Jake, whose physical confidence fills the frame long before his emotional honesty ever does. From there, the story rewinds through eighteen months of secrecy, tracing a romance built on delay, compartmentalization, and terms that were uneven from the start.
They meet in an airport bar during a flight delay, a chance encounter that carries the charge of possibility. That promise narrows quickly. Jake keeps a firm line between his life in England and the time he spends with Benji, refusing any meeting on home soil. Their relationship survives through monthly trips to Amsterdam, and even those visits are largely confined to hotel rooms, with the city itself left at a distance.
Benji agrees to all of it. The film understands that choice as a form of hunger. He gives up pride for proximity, settling for fragments of affection because those fragments still feel like recognition. By moving backward from the breakup, the narrative reshapes every early scene. Excitement is present, though it is shadowed from the beginning by the knowledge that this arrangement was built to exclude him from any lasting place in Jake’s life.
Benji spends the relationship waiting for permanence from a structure that has already ruled permanence out. The story is clear-eyed about that trap, and it asks the viewer to watch his longing with sympathy while recognizing the damage already written into the design.
The Dynamics of Control and Insecurity
Jake governs the relationship through money and emotional scarcity. He pays for the flights and hotel rooms, creating a version of Benji that can be contained and kept separate from the rest of his life. That arrangement speaks plainly. Jake claims a straight identity, using the label as protection from intimacy and public recognition. He carries himself with certainty, though the film shows that certainty as fragile, tied to unresolved fear about his sexuality. Benji becomes exposed to the consequences of that fear.
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The film makes clear that Jake is part of an old pattern for Benji. He has spent time with men who place him beneath them, and Jake fits that pattern with painful ease. Once the affair collapses, Benji slides into alcohol and empty sexual encounters, reaching for relief that never lasts. These choices are framed as familiar behaviors, shaped by earlier relationships and by a life in which he has repeatedly been made to feel lesser.
The film treats physical intimacy as the one area where Benji and Jake can communicate at all, since Jake refuses affection in public. That refusal defines the relationship more fully than any declaration either man makes. Benji comes to value the scraps that diminish him, which is a grim position for any love story to inhabit. The film presents that toxicity directly, with little interest in softening its edges. It trusts the viewer to sit with discomfort.
Visual Energy and Fragmented Memory
The non-linear structure is tied closely to Benji’s state of mind. The story plays like recollection under pressure, with moments surfacing out of sequence and carrying the force of memory rather than the order of biography. That choice gives the film a strong narrative identity.
It is less concerned with charting events in neat progression and more interested in how heartbreak reorganizes experience. Each return to the past feels charged by what the audience already knows, which lets the film build tension through rearrangement instead of surprise.
Visually, the style is bright, pop-inflected, and restless. On-screen graphics and split-screen compositions keep the film moving, and a voiceover gives direct access to Benji’s thoughts. That voiceover matters because it offers candor the dialogue often withholds. People say less than they feel here, sometimes far less.
The pacing is brisk, tuned to the compressed intensity of a weekend escape that has to hold an entire relationship. Musical passages and surreal touches appear along the way, pushing emotion outward in a form that spoken realism could not carry on its own. The editing moves sharply between past and present, catching the disorientation of heartbreak without letting the film collapse into confusion.
What emerges is a film with real formal momentum. The stylization has purpose. It reflects Benji’s way of seeing his own life, broken into flashes of desire, shame, hope, and regret. There is also a trace of older British drama in the film’s spirit, though the presentation is shaped for a current audience. That combination gives the work energy and a clear sense of authorship. The movie stays in motion because Benji’s inner life is in motion, and the structure keeps that link visible.
Northern Roots and the Search for Worth
Northern England gives the story a distinct social and emotional setting. The working-class backdrop shapes the characters’ expectations, their habits, and the forms of love they believe they can ask for. The film treats place as part of character construction, not decoration. Lorraine Stanley stands out as Benji’s mother, bringing sharpness and credibility to a figure who supports her son while seeing him clearly, weaknesses included. Her presence grounds the film at key moments and widens the emotional world around Benji.
The script also looks back to childhood, showing younger versions of both Benji and Jake. These scenes connect their adult behavior to the pressures of growing up in an environment with rigid ideas about masculinity. Jake’s anger and Benji’s passivity are presented as traits with history behind them.
The film argues that the past keeps shaping the present until it is faced directly. That idea guides Benji’s gradual change. His movement toward self-worth does not arrive in one grand revelation. It comes slowly, as recognition gathers force and he begins to understand that a hidden life cannot sustain him.
The ending carries hope, though it remains measured. Benji’s shift feels earned because the film has taken time to show how deeply his need for validation runs. The dialogue benefits from the filmmakers’ personal experience, which gives these exchanges a lived-in quality. By the final moments, Benji has stopped searching for his value in men who fail to see him. That is where the film leaves him, with a clearer sense of self and a future that feels possible because it has been hard won.
Departures is a British LGBTQ+ comedy-drama that had its world premiere at the Manchester Film Festival and BFI Flare in March 2025. Created by a collective of working-class filmmakers, the movie officially arrives in UK and Irish cinemas this Friday, April 17, 2026, via Peccadillo Pictures. The narrative centers on Benji, a Manchester man who falls into a cycle of secrecy and emotional dependency with a closeted stranger named Jake, with their encounters limited to monthly weekend trips to Amsterdam. As the story explores the toxic power dynamics beneath their attraction, it offers a raw, non-linear examination of heartbreak and self-healing. Viewers can currently watch the film in select theaters across the UK, with VOD releases expected later this year on major digital platforms.
Full Credits
Title: Departures
Distributor: Peccadillo Pictures, Films We Like, Rapt Films
Release date: March 16, 2025 (World Premiere), April 17, 2026 (UK Theatrical Release)
Rating: 18
Running time: 82 minutes
Director: Neil Ely, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan
Writers: Lloyd Eyre-Morgan
Producers and Executive Producers: Paul Mortlock, Neil Ely, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan
Cast: Lloyd Eyre-Morgan, David Tag, Tyler Conti, Liam Boyle, Kerry Howard, Lorraine Stanley, Saira Choudhry, Kimberly Hart-Simpson, Jacob Partali, Olly Rhodes, Andrew Purcell, Olivier Sublet
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Paul Mortlock
Editors: Lloyd Eyre-Morgan
Composer: Stephanie Singer, Ali Ingle
The Review
Departures
Departures provides a raw, honest examination of toxic intimacy. It uses a stylish, non-linear approach to mirror the chaos of a broken heart. Strong lead performances and Northern authenticity make it a memorable piece of queer cinema. Some stylistic choices feel heavy. But the film succeeds in finding a path toward self-respect.
PROS
- Authentic lead performances
- Brutally honest portrayal of emotional manipulation
- High-energy visual presentation
- Grounded depiction of Northern English life
CONS
- Reliance on voiceover feels heavy at times
- Non-linear structure might feel disjointed
- Some scenes suffer from over-exposition
