It is always good to see film festivals like TIFF programming distinctly trans narratives, and Really Happy Someday by J Stevens, a nonbinary filmmaker based in Toronto, explores an interesting theme that I’ve not seen explored to this extent: the transmasculine journey of adapting to a deepened voice. Here, we have Z (played exquisitely by Breton Lalama) who, before undergoing hormone therapy, had a voice that thrilled musical theatregoing audiences when he could belt Éponine’s showstopping “On My Own” from Les Misérables with aplomb. Z wants to remain in the musical theatre realm, but his latest audition is beset with cracks and hesitations. His old range is no longer there, and his agent seems resigned to transition him to TV and film. But Z is determined to keep singing, even if it means in a lower, unfamiliar key. And so, he begins training with a local vocal coach and finds a day job as a barback for pocket money—at a bar owned, coincidentally enough, by Santi (a wonderful Xavier Lopez), who is also transmasc, but much farther along on his journey than Z is, and therefore someone who can sympathize with Z’s plight.
Stevens’s film follows familiar trajectories set out in other trans narratives, wherein the main character has to go through the ringer emotionally before finding peace with themselves. To its credit, the film has not a single moment of transphobia to darken it, perhaps because it is already fogged by Z’s intense struggle with his self-worth and a voice he is no longer sure he either likes or wants anymore. There are many uncomfortable moments we must behold, as Z recklessly drowns his sorrows away in alcohol or angrily smashes his testosterone vial on the floor in a moment of frustration, and we veer too close to an all-too familiar miserabilism that trans narratives nowadays don’t always need to indulge in exclusively (because we have already been exposed to them quite often in the past). But it’s thanks to the acting from Lalama and Lopez, who make for a wonderful screen pairing, and Stevens’s sensitivity in finding joy in the smallest of moments as a director, that Really Happy Someday nevertheless emerges from its cocoon of woes with a sense of ultimate triumph and serenity. Whatever Z’s future holds, it will not be one of misery, unlike many who came before him.
Really Happy Someday had its world premiere at TIFF in the Discovery programme on September 8, 2024.
The Lonely Film Critic 