You should watch Will & Harper

There are many events I could not have foreseen in this decade—most of them, uh, really not great (free Palestine). One such event? Will Ferrell making a documentary with Harper Steele, his friend and former SNL writer, as they road trip across the United States of America so they can reconnect since Harper’s transition. Like many people, I had never heard of Harper Steele, but of course I have heard, for better or for worse, of Will Ferrell. He’s an actor about whom I’ve always felt lukewarm—I could never sit through Anchorman, yet Stranger Than Fiction is one of my favourite movies. But the trailer for Will & Harper looked … good. So when it released on Netflix last week, I sat down to watch. I laughed. I cried. I came out of the movie convinced it is important. It’s a movie every cisgender person should watch.

I was surprised by how much Harper and I have in common. We both transitioned well into our adult lives during (or in my case, slightly ahead of) the pandemic. We both knew we had found the right name the moment we said it out loud to ourselves. Less superficially: the anxieties she shares with Will in this film are echoes of anxieties I felt around my transition. While it’s important not to universalize transition into a single “trans experience,” there was something incredibly reassuring seeing those facets of my transition reflected on screen.

Early in the film, they revisit their SNL stomping grounds and have dinner with fellow SNL alumni like Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows, etc. A montage of photos of pretransition Harper with her SNL colleagues, much younger and bright-eyed, plays onscreen while Harper says in a voiceover, “Coming out to my friends was especially hard. I really can’t tell if they think I’m Harper. I think they might think I’m still Andrew, and now I wear dresses.” Yeah. Wow.

Many of my anxieties about transition revolved not around who I am or how I planned to present myself but rather about how I would be perceived. I know I am a woman and am secure in my womanhood. From the moment I first came out, however, my number one desire was to be seen for the woman I am. My happiest, most affirming moments are when people in my life act in a way that demonstrates how they’ve internalized my gender as much as I have. Yet even people who love me slip up, and of course in my daily life I run into people who don’t or won’t get it right.

And it’s hard. It remains probably the hardest part of living as a trans woman. I can deal with the infrequent moments of outright hostility. But the microaggressions … it’s tough. I’m almost five years in, but I still get misgendered multiple times a week (usually for my voice). On the phone. In stores. Even at work, by students who are otherwise lovely to me. I would like to tell you that after all this time I’ve become inured and it doesn’t hit as hard as it used to—but that would be a lie. Because each time someone slips up, it shatters me.

The documentary chooses to depict such a moment in a diner. A server slips up, calls Harper “sir,” and apologizes immediately when Harper corrects her. Afterwards, Harper comments to Will that being misgendered isn’t fun but is inevitable and jokes about what he should do next time it happens. Will seems slightly taken aback and fumbles the retort—he still isn’t used, at this point, to dealing with the lived reality of trans people, and his understanding of how to be an ally is rudimentary at best. Shortly after that, Will and Harper debrief following their night at a Pacers game, where they meet the governor of Indiana, unaware of his role in passing anti-trans legislation. Will expresses his regret about how he handled the situation.

It’s here that the importance of this film for cis people starts to emerge: being an ally is about way more than intention. You need to know how what to do to support the trans people in your life. Bravo to Will Ferrell for allowing this documentary to show his awkward moments instead of painting him as infallible. In showing the flaws, Will & Harper sends the message that being an ally is not about being perfect. You’ll mess up. But you can do better next time. And you can talk about it with your trans friends, ask them what you can do differently. We don’t mind giving you direction when we know you have our backs.

Not every trans person gets to travel cross country with Will Ferrell as their shield, of course. It is endlessly amusing, the moments when Will is not recognized, such as the Gen Z youth with rainbow bag and perfectly queer haircut on a unicycle whose reaction to being told they are talking to the Will Ferrell is a totally flat, unreactive, “Cool.” Yet in the background of that scene, onlookers have their phones out, recording this unusual sight in their sleepy Illinois neighbourhood. To the film’s credit, Harper lampshades Will’s notoriety, acknowledging the privilege his presence brings—but that makes the darker moments in this documentary, particularly the Amarillo, Texas, sequence, all the more illuminating. Proximity to fame or fortune can insulate a trans person in some ways, but it never fully softens the sharpness of the transphobia and transmisogyny baked into our society.

Will & Harper isn’t trying to document some universal trans experience, nor could it. In addition to Will’s aura, Harper of course is still white and reasonably well-off financially. In fact, I’d argue this documentary’s strength is that it isn’t actually about being trans or transition at all! This is a road movie, a movie about friendship, as Kristen Wiig’s theme song confirms while the credits roll. That’s what makes it genius.

We are in the middle of dark times for trans people in the United States and here in Canada. It’s not an exaggeration to say that some lawmakers, spurred on by fascist organizations masquerading as moral actors, are doing their level best to legislate us out of existence. It is no coincidence that Will & Harper dropped just before the 2024 presidential election. This is a movie that wants to change hearts and minds, not by hitting you over the head with facts and ideas about “the transgenders” but simply by letting you spend an hour and a half with two people, one of whom happens to be trans, on a road trip.

There are people out there who would never watch a straight-up documentary about trans people, never read a trans person’s memoir or see a trans person speak about their life. But they will watch Will & Harper, and the documentary knows this, and it’s calibrated to reach that person on their couch. The person who is largely apathetic to this whole trans thing, has yet to know an openly trans person themselves, and therefore might easily be swayed by the virulent rhetoric they half-listen to while scrolling social media. Will & Harper is a potent polemical vaccine, inoculating against hate.

And for those of you cis people out there who already see yourselves as able allies, this film is still important. I can’t stress how incredible it is to see all these well-known actors and comedians support a trans woman on screen like this. Or the heartwarming moments where average Americans hang out with Will and Harper, in a bar or at a stock car race, and treat her no differently. There are moments of sublime serenity in this film. Moments that peel back the patina of anxiety to help you glimpse the joy of transition that lies beneath. Harper is happy.

Will & Harper is a movie that embraces this paradox of trans existence in 2024. Being trans isn’t as simple as being “born in the wrong body.” Being trans is a complex state of constantly negotiating social expectations around gender from a position of disadvantage. Being trans is not the problem—our transphobic society is. Living as a trans woman today is joyous; there is nothing more incredible than living as your authentic self. Yet in this joyful life as a trans woman, I face barriers and challenges thrown up by people who don’t—won’t—understand. This movie will not reach those people. Too far gone, they will simply brand Will Ferrell “woke” and cozy up closer to those celebrities they’ve recruited into their anti-trans crowd. But that’s OK. I don’t need the movie to reach those people. I just need it to reach you, need you to watch it, and then think about what you can do, here and there, for the trans people in your life—whether you know who they are or not.

Not every trans person has a cis friend as famous as Will Ferrell. But every trans person deserves cis friends as brave and beautifully kind and willing to listen to, learn from, and love them in the way Will Ferrell listens to, learns from, and loves Harper Steele. To my fellow trans folx, I hope you find those people. And to my cisgender audience: I hope you think hard about how to be that person. When we come together and seek to learn from a place of love and understanding, we all become richer for the experience.