52 Tuesdays film review ★★★★★

Latest indie films at the cinema include 52 Tuesdays: a carefully crafted portrait of a daughter and mother struggling to adapt to the difficult process of gender transition. 

Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde received the Directing Award in the World Cinema category at Sundance film festival last year. The film presents a realistic, often unglamorous portrait of the process of gender transition, from the emotional to the physical. 

The film tells of Billie, daughter to Jane – soon to become James – who though considerate of her mother's struggle, is forced to grow up quickly as a result of the change, and suffers her own intense upheaval as a result. The film revisits James every Tuesday for a year, as he goes through the emotionally and physically draining transition.

52 Tuesdays review

Hyde's characters are sensitively drawn and true to life, from the precocious and volatile Billie (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) to the exhausted James (Del Herbert-Jane) attempting to find a balance between adopting her repressed identity and continuing to fill the maternal role.

Whilst the film's unique technique of limiting its narrative scope to play out every Tuesday does become a little grating and detracts awkwardly from the film's narrative flow, the overall notion of 52 Tuesdays is intelligent, with uniquely drawn parallels between teenage development and latent gender transition. Overall, Hyde's is an important and honest film that explores the complexities of self-identification at all ages. ★★★★★