Hex the Patriarchy
2022 · 6m · United States
Directed by Anne Brashier
Genres: comedy, fantasy, LGBTQ+
Tones: humorous, tender, whimsical
A teen queer fantasy comedy celebrates loving who you are, imagining what it'd be like to have magic in high school — unleashing vibrantly queer joy and self-love as the ultimate revenge against bullies.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's earnest and well-intentioned, which is exactly why it doesn't land—queerness as wish-fulfillment fantasy is the consensus move, and Brashier commits to it so fully there's no subversive edge to find.
A cleanly executed entry in the contemporary queer-joy comedy lineage, with assured comedic timing and visual clarity, though it doesn't quite achieve the formal innovation that would elevate it beyond its genre moorings.
The film lives or dies on how Brashier deploys the magic sequences themselves—and the choice to ground them in casual, almost mundane visual language rather than spectacle is what makes the queer self-love actually hit instead of feel performative.