You Need To Watch: She's The He

"She's The He" Is Trans Joy On The Screen

There are plenty of coming-of-age films. Plenty of them balance raunchy comedy with heartfelt moments in a way that makes an instant classic. Few do it quite like Siobhan McCarthy's She's The He.

Trans people, generally, do not have much (good) representation in film. Especially up until  recently. So when you hear that the starting plot to this film is "Two teens pretend to be trans woman to sneak into the woman's locker room," I understand the desire to roll your eyes and scroll away. And that is the plan of the two friends, Ethan and Alex. That is, until, one of them is no longer pretending.

I watched a lot of coming-of-age movies growing up. Mean Girls, Scott Pilgrim, Napoleon Dynamite, Heathers, and for some reason Teen Wolf, all stick out as the most impactful for me. These movies served as entertainment but also a sign of hope for me, that at some point in my teen or young adult years everything would click and I'd figure things out. The issue of course comes in when my teen years looked less romantic than the screen would suggest and I had to deal with the crisis no film prepared me for: Gender Identity.

She's The He takes the classic coming-of-age formula and applies it to someone starting to transition during teenhood- and the tropes play even better because of it. The classic Makeover Realization scene plays not as some type of misogynistic "strip your personality and be beautiful!" a la Breakfast Club, but as that trans moment, when it all clicks and you realize who you're meant to be. The bodily humor feels restrained and refreshing, with a clear drive to let gender not play a part in who can be vulgar in a way that raunchy comedy often only reserves for cis men. The film takes care to show a genuine trans experience through the genres classic framework, speckled with joy, hardship, and well-earned camp.

In a world where so often we have to see ourselves through head cannons, coded characters that the censors wouldn't let writers make fully gay, and versions of ourselves written and performed by cishet actors (often played to laugh at us or make us out to be a danger, or both...) She's The He is a breath of fresh air. The movie boasts a cast and crew of queer and majority trans people, letting us tell our own stories. And the cast, major and minor, shows a wide range of queer people and personalities. 

And the acting by these performers is nothing short of wonderful. Misha Osherovich, who plays Ethan in the film, plays a heart-achingly close-to-home portrayal of the early stages of figuring out your gender identity. Nico Carney who plays Alex has some of the most comedic moments in the movie and I swear to god, I know at least five men exactly like Alex in real life (both cis and normal.) Even beyond the main stars, every role is filled by someone who seems to have fully understood the project. There was not a moment on screen where I wasn't laughing or crying.

I did not expect when I got the joy of seeing this film that I would be leaving with a sob count of five. This movie will crawl up on you and make you care for/ relate to these characters and then create intense scenes leading up to catharsis, when you were laughing just minutes earlier.

Last year I got the delight of seeing this film during it's festival run, but now you needn't wait for it to come near you! It's available to buy or rent on Apple TV, Prime Video, Youtube, and Google Play Movies. I've been intentionally vague at parts in this review, because I want you to consider seeing it for yourself and helping this queer-produced indie film.

(And when you're done, consider reviewing it for yourself! Especially on IMDb, where the got 1 star bombed by transphobes.)

And finally, here are some graphics I made based off the films official advertising! I loved this film so much and I want other people to see it, love it, share it, etc.

If you do watch it, please tell me what you thought!! Tell me if you loved it! If you hated it!! If you started to watch it but got distracted by the dishes you remembered you needed to do, so you have to start from the beginning again!!!