SOMETHING WITH SILLINESS, SERIOUSNESS,
SASS, SCHEMING, AND SEX TALK

In real life, being patient with impatient, impulsive teenagers who are also snarky, sneaky, disagreeable and disrespectful can age and enrage adults. However, fictional versions of such young folks and their follies and frenzies can be funny and/or dramatically involving. Many movies, novels, plays, and TV shows have mined more than a minor amount of potential entertainment value from the lives of minors. Teen audiences recognize themselves and their peers and the peer pressure that drives them (along with other pressures and pleasure-seeking escapades and, of course, hormones). We adults can rewardingly experience nostalgia in some cases or feel aged-out of the target audience and unengaged due to a project’s predictable plot, emotionally manipulative mechanisms, overly juvenile jokes, and underdeveloped elements. She’s the He, written and directed with some charm and flair by Siobhan McCarthy, suffers from some of those common issues in teen-centric tales, but it also has its guilty pleasure moments, genuine laughs, sharp satire, smart line readings of smart-ass lines, universal emotions, a positive message, and it lets a few protagonists get sensitized and grow.

The story: Two high school seniors try a radical ruse that yields unexpected results. Alex (Nico Carney) is continually frustrated that he and his longtime best buddy, Ethan (Misha Osherovich), are assumed by “everybody” to be a gay couple — and denying it doesn’t help. Amusingly, when a teacher who aims to be super-supportive and accepting of the non-existent situation addresses the class about personalizing the look of their graduation caps with arts-and-crafts supplies, she singles out the duo, sweetly suggesting that “you two” might choose rainbows.

So what’s a guy to do, fumes Alex, when he wants the girls to want him for a date, for a boyfriend, for sex? He thinks he should just stop spending time with Ethan immediately and not room with him at college (as planned). Then an idea pops into his inadequate teenage brain (scientists tell us that our brains are not fully developed until age 25): What if they start telling everybody that they are actually both trans?!?!?? Ethan is reluctant, but persuaded. In a quick-paced montage of them trying on big brassieres, frilly frocks, and other female fashion looks, they browse through wardrobe racks and rack their brains on what their next high-heeled steps should be. They step up to dress up in various styles, make up stories of how they truly feel, and then there’s make-up when Sasha (Malia Pyles) – the girl Alex covets – decides to take up the challenge of giving Ethan a make-over, blending blush and eyeing eye shadow. Elsewhere, the soundtrack includes a recording of the Rodgers & Hammerstein song “I Enjoy Being a Girl.”

On paper, it may – understandably – sound like She’s the He might be a disrespectful, insensitive, clueless treatment mocking and minimalizing issues involving actually being trans, especially with the selfish trickery and pretense involved. But, hold on and hold your hats and tsk-tsking: The movie didn’t simply have a consultant or advisor who is trans: It is more than notable that numerous people involved are indeed transmen or transwomen and others are somewhere on the queer spectrum. Knowing about and sensing their insight makes it all more intriguing and unique for the viewer, adding another layer to the perspectives.

Still, there’s heaps of verbal and visual crass, low-class stuff that’s typical of teens: plenty of potty-mouthed dialogue; objectionable objectifying of others; insult “humor”; primitive drawings of genitals as might be found on graffiti-filled walls; where other teen romps feature food fights, this one substitutes a war throwing girls’ bloodied sanitary napkins.

The acting is admirable and nuanced in many cases, with kudos not just to the contrasting energies of the aforementioned performers, but also to Suzanne Cryer as Ethan’s mom and Tatiana Ringsby as a nonbinary student. As in many projects with actors portraying teens, some of them don’t look quite young enough to fit in with the rest. There’s gentleness under some of the brashness and bravado.

Key action takes place in that taboo paradise of their fantasies: the mysterious girls’ locker room. They sneak in to peek in, get quite an eyeful, get discovered, and bluff their way into being welcomed. Later, a group of other guys stage their own invasion there in a darker way. The film’s tone shifts cover breezy, sleazy, wacky, tacky, dopey, and mopey; things get dark after the snark, with confusion, confession, condemnation, and constructive conversation. Teenagers are in the process of discovering who they are and how they want others to see them, and She’s the He takes a serious turn in exploring feelings, friendship, mother/child connections, and gender roles as it rolls along.

She’s the He
screened at NewFest37
East Coast Premiere | 82 minutes | English
for more info, visit She’s the He