Laurence Anyways

It would be wrong to call this "just another TG movie." It's an intense love story, told in a throwback avant-garde style, which is pretty impressive. I enjoyed both the art that was intended to reflect the lives of two artists, as well as the story.

CinemaSerf

Xavier Dolan pretty much tries to rewrite the gender identity book with this overly long, but quite potent look at the life of "Laurence" (Melvil Poupaud). He is a pretty discontented man who announces to his long term girlfriend "Fred" (Suzanne Clément) that he is deeply unhappy in his own skin, and that he feels he would be much more fulfilled as a person if her were to be a woman. She's a bit taken aback, there are the "is it me?' conversations and then the realism sets in for her. That realism is even more difficult for his parents. His father, well he takes a slightly more stereotypically rejectionist perspective but his mother (Nathalie Baye) has a far harder time reconciling his choices. Though in response to his "Will you still love me", she comes out with "Are you becoming a woman or an idiot?", you sense that her world is in just as much turmoil as that of her son who now wishes to be her daughter. With the family stresses bubbling away, he starts to dress more freely and that attracts comments at work. He's a literature lecturer - perhaps a vocation that might provide for an atmosphere of tolerance and alternatives? Well, no - not quite, and pretty soon he is without a traditional form of anchor in his life, but no less determined. The story is set across a ten year period during which "Laurence" moves towards realigning his sex and dealing with the consequences for him and those around him. Poupaud is really quite effective at illustrating the peaks and troughs of his new life, of the days of joy and empowerment tempered with those of depression and isolation. Baye also delivers strongly as a woman conflicted and not at all certain of what is best for her child - and there is something plausible about her behaviour. Then there's Bellair's effort as his lover. That doesn't work quite so well for me, but maybe that's because I felt the behaviour written for her character just didn't resonate with realistically very often. It is over-written. There is way too much dialogue and at times I wanted them to shut up so I could take things in and assemble the scenario in my own mind. It has it's thought-provoking moments, and it also has some dry humour to lighten the mood every now and again as, in the end, Poupaud does make you care.

FrameFatale

I know people in this category pretty well, so I went into this film with some already strong feelings. I’m going to be fairly critical of this film despite being a really well shot and crafted and even a film I enjoyed enough. One criticism I have of Laurence Anyways is that, despite its reputation as a film about gender dysphoria, it spends surprisingly little time exploring dysphoria itself. Instead, its focus is on the consequences of coming out and non-conforming, the effects on relationships, family, work, and identity as seen from the outside. Laurence’s motivations remain largely implicit, and the audience is asked to accept them rather than understand them. The recurring phrase “born in the wrong body” functions more as a narrative premise than an idea the film meaningfully examines. Whether one agrees with that phrase or not, it carries profound psychological and philosophical implications that the film leaves unexplored. As a result, Laurence Anyways succeeds as a meditation on love, change, and social upheaval, but is less convincing as an exploration of the internal experience that precedes transition.\ \ I appreciate that Laurence isn't portrayed as a villain, a hero, or a caricature. The film allows Laurence to be contradictory, selfish at times, loving at times, confused, hopeful, and deeply human.\ \ The film leans heavily into the idea of identity without exploring why someone like Laurence develops that profound need in the first place. Laurence Anyways avoids being overtly ideological, but because it stays almost entirely hidden in Laurence's subjective experience, it also doesn't leave much room to ask difficult questions about different developmental pathways or why different people arrive at transition for different reasons. That's okay. but I felt like it missed an opportunity for viewers to be drawn in, but merely passive observers.\ \ Another aspect that felt underdeveloped was Laurence’s transition itself. Despite spanning nearly a decade, the film presents surprisingly little sense of psychological or physical evolution. Laurence declares a female identity early on, but thereafter seems largely unchanged, making the transition feel more like a fixed premise than an unfolding process. There is little exploration of how Laurence’s relationship with her body, presentation, or sense of self develops over time, nor of the small milestones and setbacks that often accompany profound personal change. As a result, the passage of years gives the impression that Laurence has simply become more accepted, or more rejected, by others, rather than allowing the audience to witness a person gradually becoming someone new.\ \ I don't need a film to solve the origins of dysphoria. In fact, trying to would probably have made it less compelling. But when the film repeatedly invokes "born in the wrong body," it leans on a phrase that carries enormous philosophical weight without unpacking what it actually means. The metaphor points toward a real experience, but it isn't itself an explanation. That's the tension you would have liked the film to acknowledge.\ \ I liked the movie overall but it was more an outsider looking in and I didn’t feel like we really knew motivations or if we did it kept them very simple or unvoiced. We saw but didn’t really get into their heads much. Laurence Anyways is extraordinarily observant, but it's also deliberately opaque. It watches Laurence rather than inhabiting Laurence.\ \ That creates a certain distance. As a viewer, you witness the consequences: relationships changing, identity evolving, moments of joy and pain, but you rarely experience the internal deliberation that led there. The film seems less interested in why Laurence feels compelled to transition than in how everyone responds once Laurence does.\ \ For many viewers, maybe the film offers a window into an unfamiliar life. I was hoping for access to the internal struggle, the years of negotiation, the shifting meaning of transition over time, and the way motivations can evolve without the underlying experience disappearing that many with gender dysphoria experience.\ \ I was hoping it would shifted away from asking people to simply accept that dysphoria exists and toward helping them understand what it actually feels like to live with it, including the ambiguity, the changing interpretations over a lifetime, and the difficult decisions it forces. Any film that stays mostly on the surface of those motivations feels emotionally incomplete, even if it's beautifully made.