‘Music Box’ is an intimate and poignant dive into the queer experience, told through the eyes of Joy, a gender-fluid character grappling with both their identity and existence. Skye-Lee Lyons stars as Joy, whose emotional journey is laced with confusion, love, and the unshakable weight of being stuck between life and death. Writer/director Dawson Thomas crafts this low-budget drama with raw authenticity, delivering a story that feels personal and universal.
Joy’s disjointed memories reflect the complexities of their queer identity. They meet Sam (Owen Isham), a stranger who offers not just kindness but understanding – something Joy has rarely encountered. Their connection is immediate, and through Sam, Joy finds a moment of solace and safety in a world that has often rejected them. The film subtly weaves in the nuances of gender fluidity, not through heavy-handed exposition but in the gentle, unspoken ways Sam and Joy communicate and exist together.
At its heart, ‘Music Box’ is about identity. It’s about living between two worlds: one of acceptance and love, and the other marked by pain and discrimination. This struggle becomes painfully clear when Joy and Sam are attacked by a group of bigoted thugs. The violence reflects the real-world dangers faced by many in the LGBTQ+ community.
In a heart-wrenching twist, Joy reveals they’ve been dead all along, piecing together their memories while caught between the living and the dead. This revelation deepens the film’s exploration of queer identity, as Joy confronts not only death but the discrimination that haunted them in life. Though the supernatural angle feels a bit stretched, the film’s core message remains powerful.
‘Music Box’ is not without flaws – its pacing drags at times, and the narrative could have been tighter. But its exploration of queer identity and the emotional performances by Lyons and Isham make it a film worth watching. It’s a story about love, loss, and the struggle for acceptance, and in its quiet moments, it shines with honesty.
