‘Lesbian Space Princess’ review: Queer Australian animation could be a crowdpleaser

Dirs/scr: Emma Hough Hobbs, Leela Varghese. Australia. 2025. 87mins

Queer coming-of-age stories are becoming something of a staple, so it’s nice to see Australia-based queer writer-directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese try something different with their animated musical comedy Lesbian Space Princess, which is set, you guessed it, in a “gaylaxy” far, far away. Yet much of the film still feels quite familiar, despite some smart sight gags and fun pop-cultural jokes and puns (the villains, who exist only in 2D, are known as the “Straight White Maliens”). This shouldn’t put a damper on the film’s prospects on the LGBTQ+ festival circuit following its Berlin Panorama premiere, however, as it’s a colourful and life-affirming crowdpleaser.

A colourful and life-affirming crowdpleaser

Saira (voiced by Birdeater’s Shabana Azeez) is the adolescent daughter of the lesbian royals that rule the small planet of Clitopolis, which looks like it was designed by Japanese animators who only like the sparkly colours in the crayon box. In a good example of the level of humour found throughout, it is mentioned several times that Clitopolis “is hard to find” – at least for anyone not of the lesbian persuasion. 

Though emotionally not quite mature, the titular space princess is head-over-heels in love with Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel), a bounty hunter — at least on paper, we don’t really see her hunt all that much — who dumps Saira early on for being boring, sending her spiralling. To make matters worse, Kiki is then kidnapped by the Straight White Maliens and Saira needs to go and rescue her ex at the other end of the universe. Her somewhat accidentally chosen mode of transportation is a dingy old spaceship with a control system entertainingly voiced by Moulin Rouge’s Richard Roxburgh, who plays the role as if 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL were a clueless white male chauvinist.

On her way to achieve the impossible, Saira of course has some emotional growing up to do, much of it thanks to her encounter with Willow (Gemma Chua Tran), a self-professed Goth chick to complement Saira’s emo girl. In one of the feature’s handful of songs, Willow serenades Saira in a low-fi, folky tune that is about as original as its lyrics: “I’ve got a crush it’s true/and it’s on you.” What works much better is the aspiring chanteuse’s Taylor Swift-like comeback after she’s friendzoned as soon as Kiki calls Saira to remind her she needs to be rescued, and inspired line which provides the only real belly laugh.  

The intended audience for this vivid adventure is unlikely to care about the film’s lack of originality in the story beats and character-development areas as long as the film delivers on other levels, which it mostly does. It looks appropriately poppy and appealing and, while there are a few longueurs, on the whole Lesbian Space Princess zips by, while delivering quite a few chuckles along the way. It’ll also make a terrific double bill with the more uproariously comic lesbian indie classic Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.