Pretty Red Dress is a debut feature starring a one-time X Factor winner so, you know, kill me now. But it’s a thin week and I’ll cut it some slack and be kind, like it says on the T-shirts. That was my thinking, because, as is now obvious, I can be a patronising fool. This is a terrific film. It’s original, has heft, is magnificently performed, and it blew me away.

The writer-director is Dionne Edwards who, as I also now know, was named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow in 2019. One of her shorts, We Love Moses, is available on Disney+ and it is totally worth 15 minutes of your time. The X Factor winner isn’t Harry Styles, for once, but Alexandra Burke, who triumphed in 2008. Here, she plays Candice, who works in a supermarket but dreams of becoming a West End star. And it’s not far-fetched: she’s up for playing Tina Turner in a big musical with only a few auditions to go.

Meanwhile, her partner, Travis (Natey Jones), has just been released from a year in prison and they have a teenage daughter, Kenisha (Temilola Olatunbosun), who is academically gifted but having trouble at school. I was fearing: oh God, Travis won’t stay clean and will return to drug dealing, dragging the whole family down. Don’t do it, Travis! But, as quickly becomes apparent, it’s not that story. It’s nowhere near that story. (I wasn’t even close.)

Travis is a tough, respected fella on their Lambeth estate. Kids playing loud music laugh at Candice when she tells them to turn it down, but one look from Travis and they’re on it. That’s important to note, and Edwards has us note that right from the off. Yet he is also romantic, loving, and supportive of Candice’s ambition. When she spots a sparkly, pretty little red dress in a vintage shop that would be perfect for the next audition but they can’t afford, he demeans himself by washing pots in his awful brother’s restaurant kitchen to buy it for her. Candice is overjoyed. What she couldn’t know is that the dress is about to set a bomb under everything.

Travis has a secret: he likes to wear women’s clothes. I dithered about whether or not I should say that, whether it would be a spoiler, but the film is selling itself on this twist, and some of the publicity stills are explicit in this regard. Also, with the first instance out of the way early on – thankfully, the pretty red dress seems to have plenty of stretch – the drama achieves its narrative propulsion by making us eager to know what will happen if and when he’s discovered. The pervading atmosphere is one of tension and dread. What if Candice comes home early?

It’s not really a film about black masculinity, although it will be read as such. It’s about anyone who belongs to a particular community, and wants to fit in with that community, but knows they will be ejected, and shamed, if they are honest about themselves. The characters are complex, while the performances never hit a false note. Burke’s performance is stirringly unaffected, capturing her character’s highs and lows, her anger and joy, while Jones superbly expresses Travis’s confusion in a quiet rather than melodramatic way. Little is said. You understand simply by the way he eyes the dress, hanging on the back of the bedroom door. As for Olatunbosun, you could watch her all day.

It isn’t flawless. The Tina Turner subplot ultimately seems superfluous, as if it’s there just so Burke can sing. But as her rendition of ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ is so wonderful, I’m fine with that. In short, the lesson here is that you can never tell a book by its cover. Even though you mostly can.