We don’t know why you put us here but we’re happy to be here and we will fight to stay here. And if you think that we deserve to be here we know we deserve to be here. Thank you for making us be us and f*ck you for making it so hard.
I feel like to properly interpret this movie I needed a Torontonian queer around - I couldn’t tell what was a queer culture different from the ones I’m familiar with, what was a plot point, what was a simplification for storytelling purposes. Is the scene there really this integrated between different sexual/gender identities, or is that a Disneyfication? Is it really plausible for a drag scene there to be led by a trans lesbian? Do people there actually use “LGBTQ” in informal conversation?
I also would have loved to have them next to me spotting the shout-outs to actual Toronto queer life & history. It’s clear this movie was made with a cast & crew heavily populated by actual queer folks with a connection to the place. I’m pretty sure Malibu’s lost Mandy is a reference to the tremendous Mandy Goodhandy - that might even be her in the polaroids of Malibu’s partner? The movie, unusually, correctly locates the peak of the AIDS crisis in the 90s, where the most people were dying, rather than the 80s, where public concern & fear were highest. The outfits & makeup are ON POINT, and hew much closer to (excellent) real-life drag than TV/Instagram drag.
There are a couple subtly subversive choices in the way this story is told that I really appreciated. The movie is careful to avoid labeling Nabil as either trans or gay, correctly understanding that those labels are irrelevant to the character’s motion within the movie. (And casting/writing a drag mother who can also plausibly be read as a trans mother lets Nabil remain between/outside of those labels.) I personally really dug this choice because for most of my life I’ve been a little allergic to drag (it’s often a pretty transphobic space and even when it’s not, can land uncomfortably close to a mockery of trans womanhood), and the ambiguity made it safe for me to relax into appreciating the art of Nabil’s transformation. And it’s refreshing that Nabil’s childhood and his grief for his mother is allowed to influence his identity: “born this way” is an important foundation for legal rights but doesn’t line up well with every queer life story. And I find it incredibly impressive how expertly this movie walks the line between a sanitized “inspirational” portrait of queer life and trauma porn - this I think is the most telling signature of a queer cast & crew, that queer life is allowed to be really hard without it being a tragedy. No straight person comes to accept a queer person’s queerness, no rich gays change their mind and save the day, history is lost and the united strength of the community is not enough to save it, but, somehow, the ending is a happy one.
Alexandra Billings is an absolute powerhouse and covers over a lot of the movie’s technical weaknesses. The rest of the cast isn’t as consistently strong as her (though, really, what cast could be), the script is a bit uneven (or perhaps it’s the editing - I often felt like key plot beats fell off-screen, between scenes, while we spent more time than we needed to on inconsequential moments), and there’s a mix of gorgeous shots and cinematographic choices that are pretty awkward for storytelling (I never really get a sense of the space that Malibu is living in? Is Ryan living there too?). I doubt anyone will remember this as a Great Movie, but it is pretty lowercase great: I had a really good time, I laughed, I cried, I felt less alone.
Review by callie_jenningsBlockedParentSpoilers2024-04-26T02:37:15Z
We don’t know why you put us here
but we’re happy to be here
and we will fight to stay here.
And if you think that we deserve to be here
we know we deserve to be here.
Thank you for making us be us
and f*ck you for making it so hard.
I feel like to properly interpret this movie I needed a Torontonian queer around - I couldn’t tell what was a queer culture different from the ones I’m familiar with, what was a plot point, what was a simplification for storytelling purposes. Is the scene there really this integrated between different sexual/gender identities, or is that a Disneyfication? Is it really plausible for a drag scene there to be led by a trans lesbian? Do people there actually use “LGBTQ” in informal conversation?
I also would have loved to have them next to me spotting the shout-outs to actual Toronto queer life & history. It’s clear this movie was made with a cast & crew heavily populated by actual queer folks with a connection to the place. I’m pretty sure Malibu’s lost Mandy is a reference to the tremendous Mandy Goodhandy - that might even be her in the polaroids of Malibu’s partner? The movie, unusually, correctly locates the peak of the AIDS crisis in the 90s, where the most people were dying, rather than the 80s, where public concern & fear were highest. The outfits & makeup are ON POINT, and hew much closer to (excellent) real-life drag than TV/Instagram drag.
There are a couple subtly subversive choices in the way this story is told that I really appreciated. The movie is careful to avoid labeling Nabil as either trans or gay, correctly understanding that those labels are irrelevant to the character’s motion within the movie. (And casting/writing a drag mother who can also plausibly be read as a trans mother lets Nabil remain between/outside of those labels.) I personally really dug this choice because for most of my life I’ve been a little allergic to drag (it’s often a pretty transphobic space and even when it’s not, can land uncomfortably close to a mockery of trans womanhood), and the ambiguity made it safe for me to relax into appreciating the art of Nabil’s transformation. And it’s refreshing that Nabil’s childhood and his grief for his mother is allowed to influence his identity: “born this way” is an important foundation for legal rights but doesn’t line up well with every queer life story. And I find it incredibly impressive how expertly this movie walks the line between a sanitized “inspirational” portrait of queer life and trauma porn - this I think is the most telling signature of a queer cast & crew, that queer life is allowed to be really hard without it being a tragedy. No straight person comes to accept a queer person’s queerness, no rich gays change their mind and save the day, history is lost and the united strength of the community is not enough to save it, but, somehow, the ending is a happy one.
Alexandra Billings is an absolute powerhouse and covers over a lot of the movie’s technical weaknesses. The rest of the cast isn’t as consistently strong as her (though, really, what cast could be), the script is a bit uneven (or perhaps it’s the editing - I often felt like key plot beats fell off-screen, between scenes, while we spent more time than we needed to on inconsequential moments), and there’s a mix of gorgeous shots and cinematographic choices that are pretty awkward for storytelling (I never really get a sense of the space that Malibu is living in? Is Ryan living there too?). I doubt anyone will remember this as a Great Movie, but it is pretty lowercase great: I had a really good time, I laughed, I cried, I felt less alone.