Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Romain Duris, Anaïs Demoustier, Raphaël Personnaz, Isild Le Besco, Aurore Clément, Jean-Claude Bolle-Redda, Bruno Pérard, Anita Gillier, Claudine Chatel.
It is a peculiar thing that in the 21st Century the world of tolerance and acceptance has moved on so much that pre-Second World War, post Victorian and Edwardian Society would be outraged and scandalised by what they see our generation doing to their so called superior ideological landscape. It is with a smile in the heart to believe that the 21st Century in many cultures can at least stand up and be counted for doing the right thing and to knock down the pillars of moral susceptibility in an old regimes point of view.
Where that sense of equality is perhaps still standing in the background, still waiting for the objectivity of laughter to abate and be quelled is in the image of the six foot cross-dresser as they come to terms with their own psyche and inhibitions. From the nervous laughter in some, to the abhorrent cases of physical and mental violence when they are confronted with the sight of a drag artist, cross-dresser, transgender or transvestite, it still feels as a society that at times, we are still living on the moral vacuum handed down by a society that made criminals out of such men.
In The New Girlfriend, a piece of polished French film-making, lovingly adapted from a Ruth Rendell story, the realism and reality of cross-dressing, of relationships and sexuality is blurred, explored and given such a treatment that it’s hard not to appreciate the agony that some people will go through to express their true selves and emotions, or to try and quieten the beast that lurks and compels them to take such actions.
When David’s wife dies tragically young, he is left alone to bring up their new born daughter and turns to the only comfort he had as a child and a young man and that is adopting a female persona. When his wife’s life-long best friend Claire catches him in the act, the sense of grief and almost anger at his betrayal of her memory stirs up feelings that she never knew existed.
The New Girlfriend explores this carefully weaved thought of self-expression and social gender change at what is perceived and what is imaginary to the point where the cinema goer is left disarmed and can only be captivated by the growing relationship of David/Virginia and Claire.
Both actors must be congratulated for opening up the conversation and for playing the respective roles in a subtle and beautifully performed way. Whilst Romain Duris will no doubt take many of the plaudits for his brave and sincere portrayal of the grief stricken cross-dresser, in the same way that Dustin Hofman managed to do with consummate ease in Tootsie, it is perhaps the tolerance and gradual acceptance displayed by Ms. Demoustier, a woman who really did look as though she was the cat who found the biggest opened jar of cream going throughout the film, that will stick in the mind perhaps all the way to the nominations for best foreign language film in 2016.
A film of style and grace and one in which rightly throws light onto a subject that many would shun but for whom acceptance is all that is needed.
Ian D. Hall