Will & Harper

Incoming: Harper Steele, Erica Wrong Cinematographer who barrels toward the story headfirst, Graves fight that in SNL. Shit. A few weeks or maybe even months later Steele dropped a bombshell on him through an e-mail.

Steele who became head writer SNL has always liked getting into her car and driving for hours and hours from one side of the country to the other stopping at all the likely diners and dive bars and the people inside them.

Steele, as an openly trans woman, believes that this freedom to move from one state to another, which every American has, is now was of sad and quite lonely consequence for her. As she explains, her love for this country does not seem to be reciprocated.

As a result, Will & Harper decide to hit the highway, using Pringles to lace themselves for a westward trip from New York to California in order to repair their relationship with Harper as she comes out and so she could come home as who she really is. Luckily, Josh Greenbaum also ended up being quite propitious when he started directing and filming “them”.

For those approaching this with the mindset that they have never met any trans people, The Show offers an opportunity to meet Harper the person because she tells Will that there is nothing he cannot ask her. At first, he is careful regarding what he can ask and how he can frame it. There is not something like ground rules between friends, she calms him, soon satisfying his worry that perhaps he would ever say something nasty.

Is she a worse driver because she is a woman? Ferrell asks a while later. It’s an exchange that captures the intimacy of their friendship that is also consistent with the comedic nature of the movie which has many laughs. And yes, there are trans people, and yes, they are funny… or at least not overly serious, and they will also tell jokes.

In this film which focuses on a trans woman, the viewer allows her to unfold her narrative on her own without much hindrance. This is a very sad story because in an ideal world, that should never be the case – we should never have to take the time to “humanize” or to “demystify” trans people.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in America in 2024 or in many other locations. One still sees ignorance and misinformation where one least expects to see it. Some time ago, one of the therapists who Harper was in treatment with attempted to persuade her against sex reassignment.

Though some of our introduction to Harper includes her transgender background, as the film progresses and we interact with Harper, it is about Harper the person and her entirety than it is about being categorized under a single identity.

The well made and positive image of Harper and the closeness of her friend and her experiences while traversing the country are the perspectives that are important and it is good to know that this will be further enhanced because it will be readily available to viewers all over the world on Netflix. It is lilmally thin and is soft and sweet and inviting as such a film is prone to making people’s heads and hearts go spinning.

Greenbaum effectively places their particular road trip within the current context of widespread provocations against the LGBTQ communities, primarily those targeting transgender individuals (the ACLU currently accounts for 530 anti-LGBT such restrictions currently being drafted in many of the states, Illinois included). This includes Harper’s home state of Iowa, where 37 anti-LGBTQ rationing bills were introduced.

She knows very well that travelling with a fan-favourite symbiont clumsy irrepressible heterosexual central figure of any film gives her strength to go to such high risk places that she would otherwise refrain from and gives her a sense of protection by the fact that this important person is outcasted and there is a camera crew.

When aside from their duties on SNL, Will & Harper friendship included attending basketball games, it only made sense to go for one. Both of them especially grabbed the attention of many including Indiana’s governor Eric Holcomb who last year passed a law prohibiting any form of gender-affirming health care for minors at the Indiana pacers home game.

This causes an unsavory encounter with the man, made worse since Harper comes to know who the man she met is. Sharing screen with Harper feels different to Ferrell especially when it is full of strangers and they are about to have a meal. Inside the steakhouse, when eating the meat, the attention of the public and cellular phones is so disgusting that it brings thousands of both their social media accounts filled with trans hate.

Harper, feeling adventurous and rather clever, waves normally as they approach the entrance of a roadside bar in Oklahoma, then proceeds into the premises alone. It is a foreign way of presentation due to the fact that by simply being herself she is prone to misogyny.

It is an uncomfortable place what with the Confederate and the Donald Trump banners everywhere but soon she will be greeted with a show by two Native American, able bodied men, and conversations about her life in Iowa and New York flow quite easily around the bar. Still, a female shameless in accusation is referred to by her for “misgendering”, but it doesn’t seem to bear any particular spiteful connotation.

On another occasion, however, during kart racing in Oklahoma, her wish to stay in a locality is prompted by a local who suggests that she can go wherever else she may want where there are no restrictions, if that is what pleases her.

As she gets acclimatized again to America, Harper again meets more people who seem to have no problem with her transness and accept her as a person. This leads her to consider whether her mistrust of fellow citizens is partly derived from her own residual internalized transphobia and her is colonized ‘fear’ of other Americans.

Even though hatred and oppression faced by trans individuals is always present, what both the film and Harper is about is the joy that has come with getting in touch with one’s trans identity. Its quite awesome to watch her in turn, listen to other trans people’s accounts including Dana Garber from Illinois who says she knew she was trans since kindergarten and just feels a lot of transitioning is really about learning to love yourself.

Will and Harper’s relationship, which develops throughout the film, and their own feelings for one another are constructive components to the film. Yes, they are that funny and engaging and it is fun to be around them.

Also, there is an inscription of the relationship and structure which is fascinating and journalistic-editing by Monique Zavistovski and she also captures the moments when Will and Harper let their guards down and in those instances friendship developed more as they mutually shared their souls. There are parts that make the movie quite dark and sad, but still, there is the affection of the two friends in the center of the story.

There is something very disturbing about Steele in how she is both disarming and hilarious but also very frank and articulate about her experiences, offering Will and us an honest view of her thoughts before she transitioned. She says from her diary that she once thought how nice it would be to die, and later describes in very emotional terms the gender euphoria that she currently enjoys: how from the very, “the moment, I transitioned, all I want to do is just live,” I transitioned.

While it is primarily focused on a particular friendship, it somehow also provides the impression that one is attempting to catalog present-day America. The executive director of the photography department, who shot episodes of such projects as “Westworld” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” Zoë White, manages to make the movie look very handsome and scope ambitious in depicting the beauty of the land in its magnitude and diversity then shifts to sharp close up shots of Will and Harper’s faces.

In spite of all that has been said and the disagreeable language that has filled the American landscape for the past ten years, Will & Harper serves as a way of enhancing one’s understanding of how things can be, if only – sentiments and notions are shed, discussions commence, leading to a unique goodwill note towards positivity that America is unto.

As is common with such notable trips, there is definitely a nice playlist. The music in the movie includes First Aid Kit’s ¿America? as well as an evocative score by Nathan Halpern and leans more less towards cheap ploys.

There’s also very funny and very moving – just as the film itself – original number “Harper and Will Go West” that Will & Harper request their friend Kristen Wiig to write and perform them for the end credits and they do at the very end. This needs to be performed at the Academy Awards by Wiig. So watch out for other phenomenal cameos from the SNL family including Tina Fey, Will Forte and Molly Shannon along the way.

What this is about at its core is as noble in intent as it is love for friendship and standing for one’s heart that clearly highlights that where there is a true friend and laughter, one does not go too far wrong. That part I enjoyed the most haha.

A bright and optimistic narrative will be shared with American and Harper in the adventures about America and all ways, in this case, I would wish everyone to have a friend of Will’s type in one’s life who is a demonstrable ally without doing much but opening up and fully listening.

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