Just Charlie … My first Movie Review …
Readers, you will have to forgive me if you are a movie review expert, because I am not, but I felt that this film really left me wanting to write and give my personal review of it, be warned I will probably go off track and add in other bits as usual, but hey, that’s what this blog is like and I hope it’s one of the reasons you enjoy reading it. Oh, and although I have tried to provide an overview of the story line it may contain what you consider to be a spoiler, but hopefully not as I want you to read on. There are no shortages of reviews out there as the film was released almost a year ago and was also a winner of the Audience Award at the 2017 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Just Charlie (2017) Directed by Rebekah Fortune and Staring Harry Gilby as Charlie Lyndsay as the lead and Scott Williams and Patricia Potter in strong supporting roles as Charlies Mother and Father. The story is based around the main character, Charlie, who is a gifted young footballer whose future in the game seems certain and has a place offered to train at a big club’s academy. But nothing is that simple, Charlie is transgender and although assigned male at birth, she identifies as female and wants to live her life true to herself. This film portrays, really very well in my view, the struggles that each character has in dealing with this. Charlie’s, her family’s, her friends and also demonstrates how the wider community including her school, her football team and other people in her life deal with the sudden changes. Remembering all the time, that these are only changes for them and that Charlie has lived with this her whole life. This movie really does deliver, giving the audience the full range of emotion from absolute joy, to total despair and desperation accompanying both the acceptance and rejection that Charlie receives. It makes a strong case for how exclusionary attitudes are wrong and should be addressed in society in general alongside sowing the hear-warming acceptance and support that Charlie receives from others. The screen writers and the director have been careful to ensure that the difficulties experienced even by those who are supportive of Charlie are fully addressed. This film really does bring home what it means to be transgender today, showing that Charlie just wants to be recognised as who she is, and that this is something she has known all her life. She has always understood that she is a girl and no longer accepts that being identified as a boy is something that she can live with. She uses the line, “I am still Charlie in here” (Places her hand on her heart) “The same Charlie I have always been”. The scene where she finally comes out to her parents in a burst of emotion is incredibly touching and the credit to all the cast in producing such emotion into this is incredible. This is also where the back story reveals that she has told them before, after being caught dressed on many occasions, and that her father believes she is some sort of pervert or freak. The story then maps through Charlies social transition, including changing to a women’s football team, coming out at school, and demonstrates the impacts of resistance to change by some people around her and transphobic attitudes of others, showing how this detrimentally affects Charlie and her family. There is an odd scene towards the end which tries to blend the final acceptance from Charlies father to his daughter with a violent assault on her by a group of lads when they discover she is transgender, which hammers home the point but I feel was not necessary to the story and could have been left on the cutting room floor in favour of a more personal acceptance and reunion between them. All in all, I really enjoyed the film, from my perspective as someone who struggled with my gender identity for about 70% of my life to date, this really gives a great representation of what life can be like for a trans teen and in fact a trans individual in general, with a bit of denial, misgendering, acceptance, bullying, re-education, hate crime etc etc, this film has it all. Just recently there have been some critical comments made across a range of LGBT forums commenting on studios using male actors in the roles of trans females, when transgender actresses could be cast, but in this case they were right to cast a young male actor in the part, I think the whole cast were the perfect mix to make this story work. Watch this movie if you love a real tear-jerker and like to immerse yourself in the characters and empathise with all they are going through. Great also to highlight the day to day struggles that trans teens experience and it just shows how denying young people the right to understand their own identity will be detrimental to them and serves no benefit to anyone. I promise that this film will not leave a dry eye in the house. As a side note, Deadnaming was the only thing missing in the movie, it wasn’t relevant in this story because Charlie remained Charlie throughout transition. In a recent article published in the Journal of Adolescent Health from a study by the University of Texas found that for transgender youths, being able to use their preferred name, in everyday life experienced 71% fewer symptoms of depression and a 65% decrease in attempted suicide when compared to those whose had the change in name rejected. This shows just how important recognition of identity is. So, this movie gets a massive thumbs up !!! If you haven’t seen it yet, then you should, and when you have, get out and tell others, and then do your bit to help others understand that trans is normal, and not something to be shut away or denied or suppressed. Finally I just want to say thankyou so much for reading this and I really hope you enjoyed this post and the movie when you now watch it. I would love to hear your feedback so feel free to leave that, just fill out the leave a reply and comment at the bottom of the page. Then also please check out my other blogs in the archives. Love and hugs Sophie xx If you would like to see more and follow me I can be found and followed at the sites below: Facebook www.facebook.com/beingsophie Twitter www.twitter.com/sophietgirl Bloglovin www.bloglovin.com/blogs/being-sophie-17676297
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AuthorHi, I'm Sophie. I hope you enjoy reading my blog. Please leave some comments on what you think of my blog x Archives
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