Indie Meme ‘26: Fucktoys

The opening scene of Annapurna Sriram’s Fucktoys might sound familiar if you’ve seen Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7: A young woman receives a tarot reading that portends her doom and sets the plot in motion. But unlike Varda’s Cléo, Sriram’s protagonist AP (played by the writer/director herself) isn’t on a journey to accept her fate; she’s determined to rustle up $1,000 for a ritual that will supposedly end the curse she’s told has been placed on her. (Also, her tarot reader is Big Freedia.) What transpires over the next hour and a half is a gonzo, technicolor odyssey that will keep you guessing at every turn. 

To make the money she needs, AP (a sex worker) begins taking any job she can get: being an escort at a debaucherous, fancy house party, giving private dances at a strip club bearing the film’s title, making a personal call to a john under house arrest. Chosen to accompany her on this fool’s journey across the fictional city of Trashtown, USA is her BFF Danni (Sadie Scott), an unvarnished punk who enjoys partaking in amateur fight clubs when they’re not riding passenger on AP’s moped. The pair’s dynamic is tender, funny, familiar, and replete with enough sapphic tension to keep you wondering where it might go. 

The two couldn’t be more different: AP has all the wide-eyed, unassuming charm of a Disney princess, perpetually outfitted in coordinating floral separates and high heels with frilly socks, flowing locks of hair held in an elegant half-updo by a red bow. Butch, black-clad Danni, by contrast, has cropped shock-blonde hair, an ever-present array of facial wounds, and a refusal to tone down their attitude for anyone. Together and on solo side quests, the friends get into various antics necessitating quick thinking and narrow escapes. They don’t set out to cause these disturbances, per se, but the combination of AP’s easygoing, always-game demeanor and Danni’s unapologetic, rough-around-the-edges nature tends to alchemize into a perfect recipe for trouble that keeps them (and, by extension, the story) on the move.

The film does make time to let the viewer breathe, though. Lovely sequences of AP and Danni cruising down the road at sunset, frolicking around and snuggling in AP’s bedroom (really, an entire bedroom set placed in an open field—don’t ask questions) in golden-hour light, or sharing meaningful glances over drinks in a moody strip club offset Fucktoys’ otherwise frenetic vibes. These scenes are a welcome respite from the junk-strewn walkways, crowded interiors, and yelling matches that characterize much of the film.

This tonal and aesthetic contrast reflects another schism on display in Fucktoys: an upstairs/downstairs, front-of-house/back-of-house divide. Sriram’s script and direction shrewdly portray the difference between AP’s attentive, encouraging, unflappable “customer service” persona and the laid-back, mask-off self she gets to be around Danni and her other sex worker and service industry colleagues—candidly commiserating about swamp ass and scoffing about their privileged white clientele. The more that things go wrong for AP, the more painful it gets for the viewer to hear her assure her clients that everything is fine… though it’s equally upsetting to watch the cracks develop in her facade. 

AP’s progressive downward spiral mirrors Sriram’s intention in structuring Fucktoys’ narrative. During its post-screening Q&A at the 2026 Indie Meme Film Festival (moderated by Hyperreal co-founder Jenni Kaye), Sriram described the movie as a “personification of [her] female experience,” likening it to the arc of meeting someone and initially “being performative” before gradually dropping the mask. In other words, as she put it, it’s similar to “when a guy is like, ‘Why aren’t you fun anymore?’ and I’m like, ‘I’m just being me.’”

In fact, Sriram’s experiences as a mixed-race woman and performer provided much of the inspiration for Fucktoys. For her, the film served as a sort-of opening salvo, a way of introducing herself to the industry on her terms, as opposed to being (in her words) “defined by this white version of what an Asian American woman looks like.” Sriram wanted her main character AP (who she said represents a younger, more hopeful and idealistic version of herself) to be “sexy and free,” “iconic”—ultimately, a complex, multifaceted human. This type of dimensionality was lacking in the sorts of roles she was being offered at the time. As she explained during the Q&A, “I made this film in a lot of ways for the teenage girl that I was,” as well as for other young women who may not often get to see themselves represented onscreen.

The influence of (to name just a few she cited) John Waters, Pedro Almodóvar, French New Wave cinema, grindhouse, and B-movies are evident in Fucktoys, but the movie is never imitative; Sriram effortlessly synthesizes these inspirations and incorporates them into her own unique style and voice. Given her clarity of vision and impeccable execution, I was surprised to learn that she initially had no intention of being Fucktoys’ director. Producer Timothy Petryni, also in attendance at the Indie Meme screening, relayed his experience of convincing Sriram that she was the perfect fit for the role—so detailed and precise was her conception of the project.

From there, Sriram says, “I prepped the shit out of it,” meticulously storyboarding the film and creating reference materials for each production department during the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020. Hailing from an acting background originally, she referred to this time period as her “DIY film school.” (Interestingly, she credits her acting experience with the fact that directing herself in a lead role came naturally to her. Thanks to years spent recording audition self-tapes, she said, she was already used to watching herself perform and making adjustments to her blocking and delivery as needed.)

All in all, the love and hard work that Sriram and her team put in is evident in every frame of Fucktoys. Fans of campy, sexy, offbeat grassroots cinema won’t want to miss this splashy, confident debut feature.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider becoming a patron of Hyperreal Film Journal for as low as $3 a month!