Marielle’s (Marie-Josée Croze) life for the past 20 years with husband Paul (Fred Testot) and their two teenage children in this sleepy provincial French town has been happy and relatively uneventful. That is until she leaves work unexpectedly early one day and arrives home to discover her husband dressed in women’s clothes. Her initial disgust quickly turns to anger as she lashes out at him.
They eventually agree on a compromise that Paul will never do this again, but it is a promise that he is unable to keep. The next time he is found out provokes anger again but leads to a more rational conversation when Paul explains that he not going just ‘through a phase’ and that he has been fighting for years the growing awareness that he is a woman trapped in a man’s body.
Just as soon as Marielle starts to embrace Paul’s crisis, their sin Lucas (Grégoire Plantade) borrows his father’s computer and comes across an online Transgender Group his father is a member off and all hell lets loose. Not long after the ensuing physical fight that disturbs the whole family, Paul is omitted to the local hospital after a failed suicide attempt.
This is a turning point for both Marielle and Lucas who finally accept the struggle Paul is going through is very real. It is only Lucas’ sibling Alice (Jeanne Guittet) who refuses to listen to any reasoning and writes both her parents off as freaks, and leaves home and moves in with her boyfriend.
The real beauty of this compelling made-for-TV drama is Paul who, with a superbly nuanced performance from Testot, is portrayed with such calmness and matter-of-factness without a hint of stereotypical outrageousness that transgender characters are too often saddled with him. His sensibility and his utter devotion to a family that he genuinely loves is rewarded in the end with their complete acceptance of him even if they still cannot fully comprehend all the consequences.
The film provocatively serves as a reminder that ‘Paul’ is not alone and there are thousands like him that are suffering daily with gender dysphoria, it is just refreshing to have one story that has such a happy ending for a change.
Labels: 2018, drama, French, transgender
