Rating: R | Runtime: 106 minutes
Release Date: May 12th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: IFC Films
Director(s): Andrea Pallaoro
Writer(s): Andrea Pallaoro and Orlando Tirado

She didn’t recognize me.

You get the sense that Monica (Trace Lysette) feels as alone at the start of Andrea Pallaoro’s Monica as she did when she left home upon being disowned by her mother for being transgender. Desperate to reconnect with her estranged boyfriend, a call from the sister-in-law she didn’t know she had (Emily Browning’s Laura) brings a distraction even if it carries the potential of being hurt further by the family that abandoned her. Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson) is dying and Laura felt Monica should know and decide for herself whether to try and say goodbye.

Pallaoro and Orlando Tirado’s script makes it very clear that this isn’t an easy choice to make. Between the fear of being rejected again and the, perhaps even greater, fear of reclaiming her family after so many years of being alone, it doesn’t get more vulnerable than this. How will re-introductions go? Will Eugenia and Monica’s brother Paul (Joshua Close) even recognize her? Will she explain who she is to the former if she doesn’t? There’s a potential to spiral being back home. Maybe this return will just make matters worse by opening old wounds.

Add Oscar-nominee Adriana Barraza as Eugenia’s in-home help (Adriana Barraza) and we get a complex, quiet drama of people doing their best to do right by their loved ones. Has the illness softened Eugenia? Perhaps hindsight and regret might force her to realize the time she lost? Can Monica forgive her for what she did? Can she come home and not simply be reminded of the pain it conjures rather than the joy that seems lifetimes ago? Both Clarkson and Lysette are great at saying so much with so little. Pallaoro lets each moment speak for itself, so the inherent emotion of their performances never gets undercut by redundant dialogue.

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Trace Lysette as “Monica”, Patricia Clarkson as “Eugenia”, Emily Browning as “Laura”, Joshua Close as “Paul”, Graham Caldwell as “Brody”, and Ruby James Fraser as “Britney” in Andrea Pallaoro’s MONICA. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.