Direction: Andrea Pallaoro
Country: USA
Andrea Pallaoro’s third feature tells the complex emotional story of a transgender woman (Trace Lysette) who, after 20 years away, returns to her Midwestern hometown to care for her dying mother (Patricia Clarkson). Despite the premise, this is not a story about falling apart, but all the compromises that hold things together.
By sharing a couple of honestly touching moments between mother and daughter and adopting an understated tone, the film is never sentimental. However, a few weaknesses thwarted its ambitions. There’s this repeated lethargy mixed with an overstated tenderness in the last third that becomes tiresome. The anxiety to show forgiveness and acceptation erases any rough edge within the family, making it pulpous and somewhat unfulfilling, giving the circumstances of the title character’s traumatic past.
The unsmiling Lysette is self-assured while Clarkson is a marvel. They help paint this family canvas with subtleties as their silences speak more than a thousand words. All the same, Pallaoro, who co-wrote with regular collaborator Orlando Tirado (Hannah, 2017; Medeas, 2013), does little to develop the narrative setup beyond the basic and obvious. The sensation that passes is that of superfluous prolongation. I felt that for every sublime moment the movie has to offer, there's a cinematic dead zone of indulgence that wipes it away. As a consequence, our interest wobbles in a story that promises more than delivers.
