The theme my first year formed as it went, and I ended up watching two movies about gay women and two movies about gay men, one of each in the "ancient" times of the past (both were before 1900) and one of each in present day. Last year, the movies I chose had the simple criterion of being previously unknown to me, and I think I ended up finding them all on Neflix, though that was not strictly a requirement of the theme.
This year, it's an idea I flirted with last year: trans movies. I expect three of them to be previously unknown to me, leading to a fourth that I should have seen by now, but will not spoil until the time comes.
And it feels like a good time in my cinematic journey to watch some more movies about trans people. Just last year, two movies with significant trans subject matter made my top ten of the year, those being Emilia Perez (#4) and The People's Joker (#6). And though I suspect that my affection for Emilia Perez might actually lose me some credibility in parts of my potential trans readership, since I know not everyone thought that was a good exploration of the trans experience, I think I'm in the clear on The People's Joker.
Netflix is likely be a crutch again this year, but I already know my final movie will not be available there, so at least my Pride Month series is not also a case of shilling for one particular streamer.
The last trans movie I watched was, in fact, on Netflix, that being Will & Harper, which I saw on the eve of my ranking deadline in January. That film has something in common with the first trans movie I'm watching this year during Pride Month, which is Ian Gabriel's 2023 film Runs in the Family.
No, the commonality I'm talking about is not that both feature trans characters. It's a bit more specific than that. Both movies feature a road trip between two characters who have known each other for a long time, and are feeling each other out following the (relatively) recent coming out of one of them as trans.
That's a bit of an oversimplification of what's going on in this South African film, which, you'll be surprised to know, does not feature Sharlto Copley at any point. It does more or less start with this road trip, which features single father Varun (Ace Bhatti) and his 24-year-old son, a trans man named River (Gabe Gabriel, related to the director I'm sure). Varun didn't have any help raising River because his mother bugged out when he was a baby, claiming she never wanted to be a mother but that Varun made her bring the baby to term. She's Monica, played by Diaan Lawrenson. As you might expect from such a character, she's now in a rehab that she can't leave without a relative checking her out, which is where Varun and River come in. River has disavowed her and hasn't seen her since she left, but Varun doesn't qualify as a relative because he never actually married Monica. They can't dawdle, though, because River has to get back in time to perform in a big drag show whose top prize is $50,000, which he wants to use for his top surgery.
I should say that from the logline of this film on Netflix, I wasn't sure if it was right as the first entry in this series. There seemed to be at least some indication that this was largely from the father's perspective, on how having a trans son impacts him. Nothing could be further from reality. This film is resplendent with pride and color, much more River's story than Varun's, and it shies away from exactly none of the subjects a movie about trans people should touch on. (Interestingly, I am now remembering that it had a trigger warning for "strong sex scenes" and that those were nowhere to be found -- outside of a scene where River kisses a non-binary character. If that's a "strong" sex scene then I wonder if Netflix isn't a little squeamish with its trigger warnings.)
In any case, there's a huge amount here about drag culture, and that leads me to what I thought was a delightful discovery. Although the very nature of the LGBTQI+ experience is that it takes all kinds, I hadn't previously considered that there were would be trans men who would want to perform drag. Just so we're clear what we're talking about here, a trans man is someone who was born with the biological parts of a woman, who aspires to present in a more masculine fashion as an outward incarnation of how he feels inwardly. Logically, you would think that a trans man wouldn't need to do drag if he wanted to dress in traditional women's clothing -- he could just lean into his biology and be an actual woman. But I loved how it was clear that drag is just part of his community, and he's as likely to be friends with drag queens and trans women as other trans men.
The film is a really lovely look at all these characters, particularly the supportive Varun. (It's not surprising I would identify with Varun, as a father myself.) You get the sense that Varun has had River's back since one second after he told Varun he was trans, so in that sense, it deviates from something like Will & Harper. Not that Will Ferrell is ever, for a moment, anything less than supportive of Harper Steele, but their road trip is founded on the notion that there is something that's changed about their relationship that they have to navigate to avoid awkwardness. Perhaps that awkwardness is just far in the past for Varun and River, but Varun is so lovely that it's easy to believe it never existed.
Although Monica herself is a problematic character -- won't reveal too much about her in case you watch this, which you should -- her problems have nothing to do with her being a bigot. In fact, although she's a bit uncouth, her comments are more disarming than sinister. She's not precious around River because she thinks him being trans is not a big deal, and he does not need to be protected from comments that might seem flippant because it's clear to her that she doesn't have a problem with him being trans. And really, that's clear to the audience as well.
And for sure, we don't feel the need to feel precious about River either. I'm going to make a comment now that risks being misinterpreted, but I'm doing it to illustrate a point about the types of expectations some people might carry into watching a movie about the trans experience. One of the most striking things about River is how "normal" he is. That's not to suggest that anything about being trans is abnormal, though we know that there are plenty of people who think there is. It's to point out the fact that even people who fully support trans men and trans women might think there is something essentially impossible to hide about what they are doing, that there is something inevitable about their persona that strikes us as a performance of masculinity or a performance of femininity. That doesn't come across at all with River; in fact, so little did it come across that I was slightly suspicious of the scenes in this movie where someone immediately clocks him as a person born with female body parts, because for all intents and purposes he looks, sounds and acts like a person born with male body parts.
And of course I know that the whole point behind being LGBTQI+ is that there is no one way a person born with male body parts should be expected to look, act or sound. I think what I'm trying to say is that for anyone who thinks being trans is inevitably a perversion that can't help but call attention to itself and be constantly detectable at a perceptual level, River defies those preconceptions. I think many if not most people wouldn't know the difference. Which, for River, is absolutely 100% the goal.
Runs in the Family of course has its third act crisis and then its happier denouement, and those are all pretty satisfying. I never actually got emotional but on a couple occasions I felt on the verge of getting emotional. Which is to say, it's a four-star movie not a four-point-five or five-star movie.
It did, however, end on a bit of a sour note that had nothing to do with the movie directly, but did raise my consciousness about what even a film like this, which you suspect would have the fullest support of everyone involved with making it, is up against.
I stayed to watch the whole credits because I was enjoying the music and the still photos of the anonymous (they aren't introduced as characters) drag dancers who appear in the big competition. So that means I stayed long enough to see the following disclaimer on screen:
"Produced with the assistance of Department of Trade, Industry and Competition South Africa, who do not accept any liability for the content and who do not necessarily support such content."
I bet that doesn't appear at the end of every movie produced with the assistance of Department of Trade, Industry and Competition South Africa.
If it wasn't before now, it should be abundantly clear that in every trans success, there's a chilling reminder of how much farther there is to go.