[yasr_overall_rating]
Fourteen-year-old J goes by the pronoun “They” and lives with their parents in the suburbs of Chicago. J is exploring their gender identity while taking hormone blockers to postpone puberty. After two years of medication and therapy, J has to make a decision whether or not to transition. Over this crucial weekend while their parents are away, J’s sister Lauren and her maybe/maybe-not Iranian partner Araz arrive to take care of “They.”
Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s first full-length feature intrigued me with its premise. To combine the uncertainty, fear and the feeling of tearing of your own skin that comes hand-in-hand with puberty with the search for gender identity, seemed to me like a springboard for an intense, character-driven drama, a fascinating study of a confused, terrified teenager and the imminent choices he/she has to make. Instead, I got a slog of a film, tantalizing in premise but lunkheaded in execution.
J (Rhys Fehrenbacher) is a quiet 14-year-old who has trouble identifying as either male or female, and hence goes by the titular “They.” J is drawn to cats and the plants They keep in Their greenhouse. J must decide what They is soon, as They is undergoing hormonal therapy, eyes red-rimmed, bones brittle and hollow.
Ghazvinizadeh’s film then takes a detour and focuses on J’s sister Lauren (Nicole Coffineau) and her boyfriend Araz (Koohyar Hosseini), who come over to look after J while Their parents are away. Araz’s Iranian family are in tow, their language and traditions as alien to J as Their own body – but that theme is barely explored. The film instead treads along, with inconsequential dialogues and scenes utterly lacking any semblance of forward momentum making up its brief-but-too-long 80-minute running time.
Azaz’s status as an immigrant could have been paralleled to J being a sort of immigrant in Their skin, but alas, instead we get a sequence of artistic flourishes: still shots of nature representing gender neutrality, photography representing the fleetingness of memory, J’s poetic, half-whispered narration representing Their transitory state of mind, full-screen shots of Skype calls representing the disconnected nature of humanity… or whatever.
The film’s crucial lack of drive – surprising, given that its executive producer is the formidable Jane Campion (“The Piano,” “Holy Smoke,” the recent excellent TV series “Top of the Lake”) – along with its spotty performances render it totally bland, despite all the pretty shots and Altman-esque overlapping dialogue. Coffineau and Hosseini speak in a drone-like monotone, which makes Ghazvinizadeh’s decision to focus most of the film on them, instead of J’s internal struggles, all the more confusing.
“They” never explores what it truly must be like, to be prepubescent and unsure of your own gender. In fact, it never delves too deeply into anything, its protagonist an enigma. That’s all the more disappointing because despite the amateur touches, the director does showcase a knowledge of camera placement and, in a few cases, memorable dialogue. “It’s not your English. It’s just English – it’s awkward,” Lauren says dryly. “You’re not a girl, but you’re not a boy either. So you’re probably nothing,” another character intones. Likewise, this film is neither a fleshed-out study of identity nor a nail-biting drama. So it’s probably nothing.
Now playing in select theaters
