Culture

Wow. Words almost fail me.

52 Tuesdays was filmed over the course of one year, entirely on Tuesdays, to watch the mother-daughter relationship evolve, as Billie’s mother becomes James, her second father. Teen Billie is fairly naive to begin with, but gets totally derailed from herself when her mother starts the one-year process of transitioning from a female body to a male body. Naturally, when your mother wishes she was never a female, and thus could never have given birth to you, you start to get a teensy bit resentful. To be clear, this is a work of fiction, though James is played by Del Herbert-Jane, an actor who has chosen to be non-gender-conforming, thus making them perfect in this role.

The story arc of the film is heart-breaking. When James needs time to adjust and decides to spend only six hours with Billie a week, on Tuesday nights, Billie begins to seek other thrills to make up for the unacknowledged pain she is feeling. She and her disenfranchised friends begin to experiment with sex, drugs and other delinquent behaviour, like many teenagers, but they take it to dangerous, even criminal, places that cause harm to many. Eventually she finds herself so desperately in need of being unique and noticed that she becomes the kind of bitch that punches their transitioning mother in their recent chest reconstruction surgery stitches. It’s tough to get a clearer symbolic act of emancipation than that.

The presentation format is extremely scattered, and it’s clear we are watching a teenager’s one-year diary of moments of important meaning interspersed with a lot of unresolved misery, and yet we can barely identify which is which to her. We badly want Billie to realise the loving family she has around her, but she seems blind and attached to all the wrong things.

This film successfully made me question the assumptions I make every day about people’s gender identities, and also how you could ever forge a meaningful life or relationship when you choose not to show up for it every day. I would recommend you come prepared for emotional turmoil, and leave with a fresh perspective.

52 Tuesdays - screening at Rialto Cinemas:
6:15pm Friday 1 August & 1:30pm Sunday 3 August