FANTASIA25 REVIEW: The Bearded Girl [20XX]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 101 minutes
Studio: Vortex Media
Director(s): Jody Wilson
Writer(s): Jody Wilson / Blake Barrie & Thiago Gadelha (story)

Do what brings you joy and leave everything else behind.

Lady Andre (Jessica Paré) knows what she’s doing when asking her daughter Cleo (Anwen O’Driscoll) about her passion. She goes about it wrong considering she leaves zero leeway as far as there being a “correct” answer, but the question remains a necessary one. Because there’s a difference between fulfilling a duty and pursuing a career. Sometimes they align (like they did when Andre followed her own mother’s footsteps to keep the bearded lady legacy of their family alive), but sometimes they don’t. And one must often be given the opportunity to actually choose before discovering which is true. As things stand at the cusp of Cleo’s coronation, the “supposed to” factor has her wanting anything but.

This is especially true when comparing the path her sister Josephine (Skylar Radzion) took to find her own best self. Not having the ability to grow a beard as children made her the outcast. As adults, however, being released from the pressure and responsibility of that inheritance proved a godsend by ensuring Josephine’s future was hers alone. The tables have therefore flipped now that that purpose has become a chore to Cleo. Maybe she’d still rediscover its fun if able to put her own spin on the tradition, but Andre is too old-fashioned to have that conversation. Parents should pass down their family history, but they shouldn’t also dictate how their children carry it into the future.

So, while Jody Wilson’s The Bearded Girl (from a story by Blake Barrie and Thiago Gadelha) is mainly about Cleo’s journey of self-discovery and identity, there’s also a lesson for Andre to realize the time for stifling the next generation’s creativity and ingenuity to satisfy one’s own comfort is over. There are simply too many alternatives. Too many opportunities to reinvent oneself and escape the staunchly conservative prisons “legacy” often build. Sure, some people will still embrace the security of having their lives mapped out since birth (look no further than Keenan Tracey’s Blaze), but most kids these days understand that such uninspired, rote motions will ultimately extinguish whatever fire burns within.

Cleo must leave as a result. If only to show her mother that she won’t be bullied into being something she’s not. But there’s also the reality that her absence might remind Andre that she has another daughter—one better suited to the logistical problems that face a circus troupe at a time when casinos, like the one Dick Sutherland (Jeff Gladstone) is trying to build on their land, are the more attractive sell. It was never a consideration to split up those duties. Nor was it to spice up the act. Andre is simply too stuck in the past to realize that the changing world and status quo isn’t about her. It’s not a treatise on her era being wrong. It’s merely evidence that it has come to a close. That’s not a failure. It’s evolution.

The queer threads and metaphors aren’t therefore a coincidence. What better way is there to comment on society’s need to accept and legitimize different thoughts and lifestyles? So, you have drag star Kenneth Wyse playing Madame Tilly, the tarot reader Andre exiled from the show because her vocation was “fake.” There’s Josephine embracing her sexuality as a lesbian while also fearlessly putting her stamp upon the business. And the analogy of Cleo’s beard being something Blaze’s father would never welcome into his family—a family of children he cruelly disowned because there was a chance they weren’t biologically his. That’s a parent whose hold on the future kills progress. We hope Andre might still adapt.

And, all the while, we follow Cleo as she toes the line in-between. She wants to be different as far as it concerns being herself, but she’s also tired of wondering whether she’s missing out on something because of it. There’s a willingness to reject who she really is as a result. To shave her beard and find “normal” love despite the cost that seems to get greater each day she lives that lie. Because the desire to get the cool guy can sometimes lead you astray and force you to ignore everyone telling you that he is without redeemable qualities (including his own grandmother). That doesn’t mean a Blaze can’t change (Wilson handles his character’s complexity very well). It’s just not Cleo’s job to change him.

Nor is it her job to change herself. Not for him. Not for her mother. Not for society. We should all be able to be whoever we need to be for ourselves without worrying about outside judgement or unfounded fears. Is that the world we currently live in? Absolutely not. But allowing familiar institutions the capacity to grow and better represent that world is what’s necessary to maintain hope for the future. That’s what the stylized, comedic absurdism of The Bearded Girl provides: a glimpse forward alongside disparate characters finding the conviction to be the example that others can follow. To grab that “Daddy” energy (I can’t say I quite anticipated that ending) and refuse to be embarrassed by whatever it is about you that scares the establishment so much.