MUBI is a streaming service where you can find great, hand-picked films from across the world. In the ongoing series Through the Lens, we’ll be engaging with cinematic representation and queer interpretation via the films streaming on MUBI.
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In the history of cinema, trans and trans-coded characters have been painted as villains and deviants or, even worse, as the butt of the joke. In recent years, thanks to welcome shifts in attitude from some audiences, there has been an uptick in positive representation – with films like the stirring, character-driven Monica paving the way for more authentic, honest depictions of trans lives.
However, productions like Monica remain rare – in their last cinema-focussed report in 2023, GLAAD determined that only 0.4% of films released in the United States featured trans characters or storylines that year.
Then, there’s the fact that trans or non-binary characters are rarely the central focus of the plot – and if they are, their stories may well be focussed on coming out or coming to terms with their identity.
Trans and non-binary lives are multi-fold – isn’t it time that stories on screen reflected that?
Didactic storylines aren’t enough
Throughout the 2010s, entertainment was viewed by many queer folk as a political tool – a way to inform individuals outside the community about the difficulties which many of us face.
While this approach may well have initially helped to broaden the conversation among mainstream audiences, there was an inevitable downside. These kinds of stories tend to reduce complex scenarios to teachable moments and suggest that there is some kind of universal, homogenising experience of transness when, in reality, there are myriad diverse expressions and intersections within that identity.
At a time when the trans and non-binary community is facing legislative attacks undermining their access to healthcare and major facets of public life, representation feels all the more important – but there are other, more nuanced ways of going about it.
Monica gives us the character study the trans community deserves
We can find this depth and raw human emotion within Monica: Andrea Pallaoro’s 2022 drama about a trans woman who returns home, many years after her transition, to care for her dying mother.
The powerhouse lead performance from Trace Lysette, who plays the titular Monica, received an 11-minute standing ovation when the film debuted at Venice Film Festival – and it’s easy to see why.
In the early scenes of the film, the camera lingers on Monica in detached, middle distance shots as she goes about her daily life and remains refreshingly non-judgemental and matter-of-fact when we learn that her income is made via sex work.
Yet, as the film progresses and Monica realises she must return home to care for her mother Eugenia (played by Patricia Clarkson), the shots get closer and closer – bringing us into the character’s interior world and her mounting anxiety. Within these trim shots, there’s no room for misfires – and Lysette’s every facial movement conveys her character’s feelings of emotional turmoil.
It’s not just the difficulties of helping her parent through the final stages of illness that looms before Monica – it’s the very act of having to go home, a place where she has been alienated and rejected. Disowned by her mother as a teenager many years before, she re-enters the family dynamic at a time when Eugenia doesn’t appear to recognise her own child.
But despite her mother’s lack of acknowledgement, Monica finds solace in being able to spend time with the woman who used to consider herself her parent. There are no grand moments of catharsis or reconciliation and, instead, Monica resigns herself to snatching moments of softness and tenderness with Eugenia. Ultimately, the film asks whether or not we need our families to accept us in order to feel affirmed in our identity – but while it prompts thoughts, it’s keen to not offer one-size-fits-all solutions.
In a rarity for films helmed by trans characters, Pallaoro creates space for ambiguity and mixed feelings. Within this, Lysette deftly embodies a character whose contradictions and complex history may not be universal but which are deeply human.
