52 TUESDAYS
Unconventional coming-of-age flick is a winner
So many things could have gone wrong with 52 Tuesdays, Australian director Sophie Hyde’s moving drama about a year in the life of a teenage girl whose mother is transitioning from a woman to a man.
First, and most obvious, it could have felt like an “issue” movie, succumbing to preachiness and weighed down by the touchy subject matter. Second, the format — as per the title, the film is divided into 52 parts, depicting the weekly meetings between mother/father and daughter throughout the process. Third, the potentially gimmicky contrivances, like having the teenage girl talking to the camera throughout, as part of a home video she is making to document her experience, and the director shooting the film, Boyhood-style, over 52 consecutive Tuesdays.
Hyde overcomes all these obstacles, and then some, by tackling her subject head-on and allowing her characters to do the same.
Billie (Tilday Cobham-Hervey) is a sprite-like 16-year-old whose relationship with her mom Jane (Del Herbert-Jane) appears rock-solid — so much so that when Jane announces she’s a man trapped in a woman’s body, Billie’s totally cool with it.
What she’s less cool with is Jane’s — or James, as he is now called — decision to pass her off to her father (Beau Travis Williams) for a year while he (James) deals with all the changes in his life. They agree to meet every Tuesday, from 4 to 10 p.m. for some quality mother-daughter time (Billie still refers to James as her mom).
Broken up with black screen, followed by the date and brief clips from newsmaking world events, the weekly meetings become markers of time passing and their relationship changing in ways neither could foresee.
Much of their time is spent focusing on James’s reality, from meetings with counsellors to testosterone injections and an eventual surgery. Less is spent on Billie, who is secretive both with her mom and in late-night meetings with two new friends, Jasmine (Imogen Archer) and Josh (Sam Althuizen), for giggles, video quizzes and sexual experimentation.
Though James has long preferred women, Billie is unsure what she wants, sexually or otherwise. Her easygoing father, Tom, allows her the freedom to figure it out, but isn’t afraid to get serious when she steps out of line.
Add it all up and you get an unconventional coming-of-age flick that creeps up on you, winning you over while slipping in all kinds of commentary on transgender life on the sly.