It doesn’t take long for the action in Siobhan McCarthy’s charming directorial debut, She’s the He, to kick off. The film, which premiered at SXSW, opens with two friends scheming to get laid before they graduate from high school. Their libidinous preoccupations, like those of the protagonists of Superbad, Booksmart and more recently Bottoms, are familiar. But unlike their predecessors, Alex (Nico Carney) and Ethan (Misha Osherovich) aren’t just considered losers by the vague standards of a rigidly stratified student body. Everyone also thinks they are gay and dating each other.
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To change their reputation, the pair decide to come out as trans. The logic behind this plan doesn’t completely hold up, but the execution leads to an entertaining and endearing coming-of-age drama.
She's the He
For the most part, She’s the He follows the beats of a typical comedic bildungsroman, but McCarthy also finds distinctive ways into the genre. The filmmaker, who uses they/them pronouns, cast trans actors to play cisgender straight men who pretend to be trans women, a decision that recalls the gender-bending twists of stories like Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
The choice also underscores how much of gender — and any accompanying binaries — is socially constructed. No one bats an eye when Alex and Ethan announce they are trans because She’s the He takes place in an environment where fluid identities are expected. That adds freshness to McCarthy’s film, allowing them to offer a coming out narrative not shaped exclusively around violent trauma.
At a time when the lives of trans people face greater threats because of Trump administration policies and cultural fearmongering, She’s the He gains greater resonance via the way it tackles this reality. McCarthy satirizes the ridiculousness of conservative panic, riffing most explicitly on the so-called bathroom bills, which restrict transgender people from using public facilities that align with their identities.
The director makes some clever jabs at the manufactured fear peddled by Republicans, but on the whole this thread of She’s the He comes off as undercooked. Part of that has to do with the efficiency of the setup, which zips through Alex’s plan with a speed that leaves little room for deeper consideration. Without a tad more explanation, the satire bookends rather than permeates the narrative.
Still, this premise allows McCarthy to enter more interesting and quite moving territory. She’s the He really shines when focused on Ethan’s slow realization that she is trans. What begins as Alex’s half-baked gimmick to sleep with Sasha (Malia Pyles), a popular girl at school, turns into Ethan’s very real reckoning with her identity.
After the pair come out as trans, they start spending more time with Sasha and her friends. Sasha takes to Ethan and teaches the reserved teen how to experiment with makeup and find her personal style. Their mini adventures take them from the locker rooms to the theater department’s costume stash. Osherovich’s sincere performance intensifies the poignancy of these sweet moments. Her expressive eyes convey Ethan’s quiet excitement at finally feeling more like herself.
While Ethan learns more about being a girl and deals with the intolerance of her mother (Suzanne Cryer), Alex bonds with effortlessly cool nonbinary student Forest (Tatiana Ringsby), while wrestling with his masculinity. He reveals how much his father’s approval influences his sense of self, distorting the teen’s understanding of what it means to be a man. In these moments, Carney pulls his performance from the edge of gimmickry into territory that yields unexpected insights from a familiar plight of the teenage boy.
Alex and Ethan’s self-discovery is short-lived after Alex tells Sasha the truth of their plot. His confession leads to heartbreak, betrayal and other unexpected turmoil. McCarthy handles these turns well, especially when other cisgender heterosexual boys try to enact the same plan with more vile intentions. But there are moments when the film’s ambition exceeds what can be accomplished in its slender 82 minute run time.
Despite the hiccups, She’s the He is reliably delightful. There are funny supporting characters like Davis (Hacks’ Mark Indelicato), a gay kid who helps Alex and Ethan learn valuable lessons about friendship, and cheeky on-screen animations by McCarthy.
Leah Morrison’s eclectic costuming, Isabella Monge’s whimsical production design and the intimacy of Bethany Michalski’s cinematography harmonize to give the movie a dreamy, almost surreal aesthetic. So even as McCarthy navigates bleaker thematic territory, She’s the He remains hopeful and affirming.
