See You Then

Brilliantly acted and superbly written, Mari Walker’s feature debut offers a portrait of a transgender woman with the utmost skill.

This film is the real deal. We live in an age in which transgender issues are making headlines so it is understandable that films should appear which seek to tell tales that explore that subject. For viewers who are themselves trans there is likely to be an extra excitement at the prospect of such a film made by insiders. When that is so it is in itself a guarantee of sincerity, but not necessarily of quality. Happily, in the case of See You Then we have a trans director, Mari Walker, making her feature debut, and a trans lead actress, Pooya Mohseni, and the film is a triumph. It's a work that can be recommended to anybody looking for perceptive writing (the screenplay is by Kristen Uno and the director) and brilliant performances.

See You Then comes close to being a two-hander in that the focus throughout is on two acquaintances who meet again after some fifteen years without contact. In that time both of them have seen major changes in their lives. Kris (Mohseni’s role) has transitioned but is now revisiting the college town where as a young man she had been involved with Naomi (Lynn Chen). Kris had gone away in order to come to terms with her needs, but in doing so had left abruptly thereby breaking up her relationship with Naomi without explanation. Returning now, she seeks out Naomi to apologise but also hoping to restore in a new form the deep and genuine bond that had existed between them.

Walker's remarkable debut echoes Richard Linklater’s wonderful trilogy since like Before Sunrise (1995) this film takes place over just a few hours and shows two people walking and talking throughout. Such concentrated subject-matter requires great skill if it is to rivet an audience, but See You Then has the quality to do just that. Mohseni and Chen, like Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as the gay couple in Harry Macqueen’s Supernova (2020), play their roles from the inside and in a manner so united that you cannot say that one acts better than the other. The conversation they share captures the closeness of their past lives and the underlying interconnection that is now taking on a new character due to Kris having transitioned. The writing recognises too the tension and the pain that the sudden break-up had caused. Yet at the same time we find in their words both Naomi’s hopes for Kris in her life as a woman and Kris’s disquiet that in all probability Naomi’s chosen path as a teacher who is now a wife and mother has left her dissatisfied (Naomi is unable to embrace motherhood fully, has given up the excitement of staging works as a performance artist and her marriage may well lack any real spark).

Despite the film’s emphasis on its two central figures, there are two brief appearances involving contrasted male characters both very well realised and excellently played by Danny Jacobs and Nican Robinson. Nevertheless, the central appeal of See You Then lies in the detailed realisation of both Kris and Naomi. We are made to feel that we are eavesdropping on actual people and, while the film is, as one would expect, deeply sympathetic in its portrayal of what it means to transition, the film is no less astute on a broader front. The talk that we hear says a great deal about how women are treated in society today while inviting us also to consider on the one hand the hazards involved in being true to oneself as an individual and on the other how conformity can be less than ideal even for those in many ways suited to it. Within the film’s short running time we really get to know both Kris and Naomi and to feel for both of them and, when in its honesty the screenplay leads to a climax in which each hurts the other with their words, See You Then becomes deeply uncomfortable. A short coda seems less surefooted, but the film’s painful climax is in fact a mark of its integrity and a measure of just how much the audiences is caught up in caring about the two central characters so perfectly played by Mohseni and Chen.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Pooya Mohseni, Lynn Chen, Danny Jacobs, Nican Robinson, Nikohl Boosheri, Gavin Fink, Evey Alexander, Ryan Urquidi, Tim Chiou, Mitch N. Mendoza, Logan Mikail Varela, Tiana Randall-Quant, Sandy Burgess.

Dir Mari Walker, Pro Matt Miller, Mia Schulman, Kristen Uno and Mari Walker, Screenplay Kristen Uno and Mari Walker, Ph Jordan T. Parrott, Pro Des Tom Wyman, Ed Mari Walker, Music Robert Allaire, Costumes Lauren Oppelt.

Vanishing Angle/DiffeRant Productions-Blue Finch Releasing.
74 mins. USA. 2021. US Rel: 1 April 2022. UK Rel: 11 April 2022. Cert. 15.