Lesbian Space Princess is exactly the kind of film that could only exist because somebody was fully committed to an idea and refused to make it less weird. Set across a galaxy populated by lesbian royalty, incel aliens and sentient spaceships, Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese’s animated adventure is bursting with imagination, even when not all of its ideas land with equal success.
After being dumped by her girlfriend Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel), anxious princess Saira (Shabana Azeez) finds herself travelling across the Gaylaxy on a mission to rescue her after she is kidnapped by the Straight White Maliens. Along the way, she meets former pop star Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran), confronts her own insecurities and slowly begins to realise that her self-worth shouldn’t be tied to whether somebody wants to date her. For all of the film’s absurdity, that last part is actually what worked best for me.
A lot of queer stories are built around acceptance or coming out. Lesbian Space Princess takes place in a world where queerness simply exists. Nobody is questioning who Saira is. Nobody is asking her to justify herself. Her biggest problem is that she doesn’t particularly like herself very much. That’s a much more interesting conflict than I expected going in.
The animation is also fantastic. The film is packed with bright colours, weird visual ideas and character designs that look like they were created by people having the time of their lives. Even when a joke doesn’t land, the visuals often carry the scene anyway. There were multiple moments where I found myself admiring the backgrounds, the colour palette or some tiny visual gag happening in the corner of the frame. It’s a genuinely fun world to spend time in. The problem is that I wasn’t laughing quite as much as I wanted to.
Some jokes absolutely landed. Others felt like they had already reached the punchline but kept going anyway. The humour has a very specific internet-era energy to it that will probably work brilliantly for some audiences and do very little for others. I found myself somewhere in the middle. There were stretches where I was fully on board with the chaos and others where I felt like the film was repeating the same joke in slightly different ways.
Willow ended up being the character I enjoyed most. Gemma Chua-Tran brings so much energy and charm to the role that every scene immediately becomes more entertaining when they appear. By the end, I honestly wanted more Willow and slightly less of everything else. The film’s bigger ideas are where things become more complicated. There’s a lot here about self-love, gender, identity and toxic behaviour, but not all of it feels fully thought through. While the film deserves genuine credit for how proudly queer it is, some of its social commentary feels surprisingly blunt.
There were also a few moments that left me uncomfortable, not because the intentions felt malicious, but because certain ideas seemed underdeveloped in a way that created some unfortunate implications. That sense of inconsistency extends to the tone as well. One moment, the film is exploring Saira’s insecurities in a way that feels surprisingly heartfelt, the next it swings back into broad comedy or cartoon violence. Sometimes those shifts work. Sometimes they don’t. Still, I’d rather watch something this strange and specific than something completely forgettable.
Lesbian Space Princess doesn’t always know what to do with all of its ideas, and some of its strongest themes could have benefited from another pass through the screenplay. But the animation is wonderful, the world is imaginative, and the film’s heart is never in doubt. It’s messy, occasionally frustrating and often very funny. I just wish it had trusted its best ideas a little more.
In UK & Irish cinemas from June 19th / Shabana Azeez, Gemma Chua-Tran, Bernie Van Tiel, Richard Roxburgh, Kween Kong, Aunty Donna / Writers & Directors: Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese / Peccadillo Pictures
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