Despite recent progress (and plenty of setbacks), representational Trans cinema remains a barren landscape. Fortunately, we have an oasis in the form of Italian director Andrea Pallaoro’s new film, Monica, starring Trace Lysette. Pallaoro and his writing partner, Orlando Tirado, are no strangers to crafting intimate cinematic portraits of women in crisis. Charlotte Rampling won an acting award at The Venice Film Festival for helming their 2017 film, Hannah. Lysette received Venice Film Festival accolades of her own in 2022, when she became the first out Trans woman to star in a selected film.
Monica follows the titular character, a Trans woman working as a massage therapist in L.A. and in the death throes of a relationship with an unseen jerk called Jimmy. In between leaving voicemails for Jimmy, Monica is shocked to receive a call from Laura, the sister-in-law that she has never met. Laura lives in an unnamed Midwest town, raising 3 kids with Monica’s brother, Paul. It’s the same town Monica fled years before, when her mother kicked her out for being Trans. The mother who drove her away is now dying, but refusing hospital care, and the family needs Monica to lighten the load. We can guess pretty early on that the kind-hearted Laura is also hoping to facilitate a deathbed reconciliation for the family. Monica surprises herself by agreeing to come. She packs up her hot-but-janky convertible and makes the long drive to her trepidatious homecoming.
Monica is a stranger in a familiar town, meeting her sister-in-law and siblings for the first time. She hasn’t seen her little brother since Eugenia (the flawless Patricia Clarkson) told her she couldn’t be her mother anymore. No one in her biological family has ever met her as Monica. Every interaction she has outside the relative safety of Los Angeles is fraught with the prospect of conflict or even violence. So naturally, she proceeds with caution, ready to flee at the first sign of danger. She has learned this survival skill through experience. We don’t need to know specifics and the narrative doesn’t elaborate…
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