About Ray aims to transcend ‘issue’ label
Film a story about family, ‘not a documentary,’ director says
Moviegoers considering a screening of About Ray might expect this movie — about a teenager (Elle Fanning) transitioning to male from female — to be an “issue” story. But director Gaby Dellal doesn’t see it that way.
“Film is a form of entertainment,” she says at the Toronto International Film Festival, where About Ray had its world premiere before going into wide release on Sept. 18. “It’s not a documentary.”
She continues: “All families have their own specific challenges, and this was just a challenge that this family was going through. I never intended to make an issue film. It’s as much about the mother and the grandmother and Ray as a family supporting each other.”
In addition to Fanning, who was just 16 when the film was shot, About Ray stars Naomi Watts as Ray’s frazzled single mother and Susan Sarandon as her grandmother, who has come out late in life as a lesbian. (Oddly, she is also least supportive of Ray’s decision — although as her characters points out, being gay doesn’t necessarily make you more openminded.)
Dellal has high praise for Fanning, who can also be seen as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s daughter in the upcoming film Trumbo.
“When I first met her, I was struck by how feminine she was,” the director says. “But she’s a true actress. She just embodies the role.”
Asked about the charge levied by some that only trans actors should play trans characters, Dellal is frank: The movie needed name actors to get noticed. But she adds: “Had I been doing a film that was more centred on the trans character, then I might have wanted to really cast wide and find the exact right person who embodied Ray and IS Ray.”
As it was, she made sure both she and Fanning were steeped in the transgender issue, taking to young people who were dealing with it.
“If you just read, that’s one thing,” she says. “Getting to know people makes it all real.”