Will & Harper

Year 17, Day 13 - 1/13/25 - Movie #4,913

BEFORE: I know what you're probably wondering, why have I programmed a documentary for January?  Don't docs usually have their own block, after Father's Day, or sometimes in the summer?  Why now?  Well, I am working on linking up that Doc Block right now, and that's part of the reason for breaking this one off from the herd and watching it today.  I don't have the same line-up planned as last year, when I watched films about John Belushi, Chris Farley and the Muppets that were chock FULL of SNL stars from different eras.  As of this writing, unless some uncredited extra people pop up in this film, it's only linking to one other Doc, that one about the Yacht Rock. Not a terrible problem, because I could end the Doc chain with it, or another documentary could pop up between now and June that would link off from this one and then another doc or back to the main chain, it's cool. Maybe. But if I move this one AWAY from the doc chain, a couple things can happen - I can link to another animated film from last year tomorrow AND I can see how the "Yacht Rock" doc links back to form that other circle, and I can now include the documentary about the South Park guys buying that Mexican restaurant, which my wife's been bugging me to watch.  I didn't see HOW I was going to work it in, not until now. 

I'm also moving it up because this is a CURRENT release - this film could be a contender for the Best Documentary Oscar, now I'm not saying its chances are great, but it was released in 2024, so it's eligible, and it's probably the only doc released last year that I would want to watch, and root for, that fits that bill.  Usually there are five docs nominated and I have no interest in any of them, or I watch them SO far down the road that they're no longer relevant or something like that.  So let's carpe the diem here. 

Paula Pell carries over from "Inside Out 2". 

THE PLOT: Will Ferrell and his close friend of thirty years decide to go on a cross-country road trip to explore a new chapter in their relationship. 

AFTER: In so many ways, this is the film we need right now, with so much prejudice out there against trans people, and sure, it comes from fear and ignorance and an unwillingess to understand others, I get it, the world's a scary place even without people transitioning, but can we all just maybe grow up and try acceptance for a change?  Look, I don't really have a dog in this fight, except I know two people who changed their gender, and I supported at least one of them (more on that later, maybe) and absolutely NOBODY is transitioning because they want to prey on your kids in bathrooms or get special privileges of any kind, they're doing it because they feel out of place, something in them has felt off or broken for a very long time, and they just want that feeling to stop.  If your foot was broken, you would go to the doctor and say, "Please, fix my foot."  But if you felt broken in your soul, what would you do?  How far would you be willing to go to feel right again?  

If you want to stop reading my blog because I support trans rights to, honestly, the minor degree that I do, well, fine, I'm glad we had some time together, but there's the door, try not to slam it on your way out.  Since I'm not directly affected by another person transitioning, how does it possibly hurt me?  Get out there, buy some new clothes, live as the other gender for a while, feel free to report back, or don't, and seek your truth. I'll still be here, doing what I do, and just hoping that some day soon you feel as comfortable in your own skin as I am. What more possibly is there to say?  We live in a country that is based on freedom, although that was somewhat narrowly defined at first, people on both sides of the political aisle have been working very hard to expand those freedoms.  Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to eat a cheeseburger at 3 am if we want to, god damn it, because our forefathers died for that, they just didn't know it at the time. 

And so eventually we got to the freedom to love whomever we want, it took a while, sure, there were some bumps in the road, but finally the Marriage Equality Act took place, and hey, funny story, it came about because the Far Right tried to pass laws that were anti-gay and those laws were declared un-constitutional.  So, umm, what do you think's going to happen, geniuses, when you push for anti-trans laws like "You can only use the bathroom intended for the sex you were born at" or "You can only play sports as the gender that we think you look the most like."  Those are all going to be similarly struck down as un-constitutional, and that's ultimately going to back-fire, and create a country where everyone can be free again. Maybe.

But those of us who know someone who transitions gender-wise might have a lot of questions, so that's really what this film is about. Someone who just happens to be a big famous movie-star re-connecting with that old friend, to check in, see what's up, and oh, what's your life like now that you identify as a woman?  Is that even the right term?  Transvestite, transexual, or is that none of my business?  Probably the latter, right?  And what did YOU do during the pandemic to pass the time? Did you learn to play guitar, or bake a lot of sourdough bread?  Andrew Steele spent time dressing as a woman and coming out and all that entails, from hormone treatments to changing her name to Harper Steele.  And then at the tail end of that whole process is (apparently) writing letters or e-mails to your friends and letting them know what your new name and situation is, because if you just bumped into them on the street, that might be even more awkward than this letter-writing process is. 

Harper is up for the new challenge, of figuring out who she wants to be as a person now, can she still drive across the country like she used to, living on bad coffee and sleeping in sketchy motels.  Can she still go to a sports game like she used to?  Even if her heart wasn't in it before, and she was just going to see sports to try to be "one of the guys"?  Does she even still drink basic beer, or should she consider switching over to wine?  Probably over-thinking it there, I know plenty of women who drink beer - just try better beers than Natty Light, that's all.

Harper figures there's room for two on this road-trip, and spending a couple weeks in a car with her old friend Will Ferrell will give them a chance to discover if they can still BE friends, answering any questions either one might have, and darn it, just get out on the road and try to have some fun.  Being out in public with Ferrell proves to be something of a double-edged sword, however, because people are going to notice him, he's wild, loud, and very funny, so he may attract a lot of attention and perhaps his companion can fly under the radar.  Well, yes and no.  At the NBA game and that steak restaurant in Texas, people take photos and make nasty comments on social media, so apparently, we still have a long way to go.  Again, people, this is the land of the free, freedom is not just for the people you like or the values that you've been brainwashed into following, and just like Rosa Parks had the right to sit where she wanted on the bus, a movie star has the right to take a trans friend out to dinner without you being a complete buzzkill about it. 

Their agenda is simple, after they have lunch with some past and present SNL stars near Rock Center, they drive from NYC to L.A. and try to hit some key points in-between - Washington DC, a Pacers game in Indianapolis, some kind of weird truck race down in Oklahoma, that restaurant in Texas where you try and eat the giant steak, and some kind of ballooning trip with Will Forte at an undisclosed location (New Mexico? I know there's a big balloon festival there...) and then after the Grand Canyon and a few days in Las Vegas, they meet Molly Shannon for pedicures in L.A. before reaching the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica.  Honestly, I'm quite jealous, because I'd love to drive completely across the country sometimes, but my wife and I have taken long car-based vacations called BBQ Crawls, the longest was probably from Dallas to Austin to San Antonio to Houston to New Orleans.  I know the drill, you want to program the activities but not totally lock yourself in, some of the most fun things we did without planning them, like finding that giant artist's warehouse with the giant U.S. President heads, just off the highway outside Houston.

But damn it, this is what you do when a friend is going through something big, and making changes to their life.  You listen to their problems, try to be supportive, try to understand what they're going through (even if it seems weird to you) and just be there for them, encourage them and listen and ask questions if you have to.  It's called being a good human, and maybe give it a try, you might like it.  If this friend of yours asks for support and you don't give it, well, you risk them finding their inner peace and then always regarding you as the thing that was standing in their way - the screen door in their submarine, if you will.  It may not even be easy, and I speak from some personal experience here.  I remember when my first wife came out, and I called my parents to tell them I was going to stay with them for a week while she moved out, and before we ended the call, they asked me if I needed any help, and then they asked if SHE needed any help. Well, they were just trying to be the better people, I suppose, I was too wrapped up in the separation to support her new identity, but I guess that's to be expected. Time went by, we moved past the stigma of divorce, I got a new wife, SHE got a new wife, and I guess that's that. 

Bottom line, it's about freedom - if you want to live in a U.S.A. where nobody tells YOU what religion to practice, what you can or can't wear, who you can or can't marry, then you simply HAVE to extend those freedoms to other people, or else you're a hypocrite.  Freedom is a two-way street, it covers the other people whose belief system might be different from yours, and you can't put limits on what those people want to do just because you don't understand it or you don't like it. We are in this age of gender-fluidity now, and you just can't unring that bell.  Some people may live in-between, or switch on a daily basis, or switch all at once, it's for everybody to figure out at their own pace, if they're so inclined. But you know what you don't hear a lot about?  Gender transition regret. If it wasn't some kind of answer for the people who aren't comfortable being who they are, then there would be a lot more regret among the people who undergo gender-changing operations, and I just looked it up, the regret rate is under one percent.  That means more people regret the tattoos they get than regret their gender re-assignment surgery.  Doesn't this suggest that they're somehow on the right path?  

Who knows, maybe this will get an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary (I'm not actively campaigning for it, Academy, I swear...) and more people will see it and maybe a few attitudes can change.  Back here at the home office, I'm nominating this one in a few categories for my year-end breakdown, like "Best LGBTQ+ Film" and "Best Road Trip Film".  Hey, it's got great odds in either category. 

Also starring Will Ferrell (last heard in "Strays"), Harper Steele, Fred Armisen (last heard in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie"), Tina Fey (last seen in "A Haunting in Venice"), Will Forte (last heard in Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken"), Eric Holcomb, Colin Jost (last seen in "Tom & Jerry"), Tim Meadows (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "Bros"), Lorne Michaels (last heard in "Belushi"), Tracy Morgan (last seen in "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"), Molly Shannon (last seen in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"), Kristen Wiig (last seen in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar")

with archive footage of Dana Carvey (also last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Rachel Dratch (last seen in "I Love My Dad"), Ana Gasteyer (last seen in "That's My Boy"), Darrell Hammond (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Adrian Martinez (ditto), Chris Kattan (last heard in "Leo"), Diego Luna (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Rachel McAdams (last seen in "Disobedience"), Amy Poehler (also carrying over from "Inside Out 2"), Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "IF"), Maya Rudolph (ditto)

RATING: 7 out of 10 cans of Pringles (who knew there were so MANY flavors?)