Will and Harper

I read a write-up in the WaPo that Will Ferrell did a documentary with his best friend that sounded fascinating. I really like Will Ferrell and am always interested in supporting the LBGTQ community. Since I don’t tend to watch a lot of TV at home with a short attention span recently, I wanted to go find it in the movie theaters. Sadly it was in very limited release at the Landmark theaters which was only showing in Claremont, Pasadena, and LA. I briefly thought going to Pasadena would be fun and realized it would be 80+ minutes of traffic on the weekend and said Claremont sounds great at a 40m drive! I invited Sharon because I knew she would be interested in it.

It was a great movie. Will Ferrell was fantastic in it. The premise is that his best friend that he met at SNL (Will performed, Harper wrote some of his best hits) emailed him that he decided to transition to a woman.

It started off with the traditional Will humor of the possible questions he would ask his best friend. Which were hilarious. But we got to see them take a 16 day road trip together to go back to the places and things Harper used to do and what that looked like now, as a trans-woman.

I think what was impactful for me was to see Will’s emotion in how he learned the best ways to support Harper in her path forward. There were two specific moments where Will felt so sad and upset that he wasn’t supporting Harper in the right ways. He was saying how he should have said something different, or should have called out better ways to support Harper. And how Harper responded was beautiful.

Some of the moments where Harper shared her insecurities were really powerful because I still can’t imagine what that community has to go through and how they feel like such an alien in their own body. And to go through those thoughts every day for years upon years, and then have the bravery to step forward into something different.

What’s interesting is that my brain tries to correlate the anxiety and stress that I hear Harper saying, and relate it to what I know and my past experiences. I see people making hard and scary choices every day and having real and true anxiety over it. It’s absolutely not the same though but I found it interesting I was trying to box it into something I found relatable.

I think the same thing happens when our brains see something we aren’t familiar with. We, or I do at least, want to start picking apart what is different and try to piece it together. I want all the answers. I don’t just accept things. And I feel that was a good lesson on trying so much harder in being accepting and inclusive. There were several times in the movie that Harper was misgendered. She has an incredibly deep voice. She has a masculine face. You could see people being confused and taken-aback at times. I have been in that place and want to do better in the future. There have also been times where I felt I have responded appropriately and with love and kindness. The hate shown in some of the towns was awful. The twitter comments that were shown were horrific. Why are people so mean?

There were also several times that showed how the reaction of the community was softened by having Will, a movie star, with cameras all around, be present. Yes, this smoothed out a lot for Harper. But beyond that, she was able to walk into a basketball game with her best friend by her side. Knowing that the next time she did that, she would have that memory and know that it was going to be okay. Or walk into a bar and get a beer, and sit down and talk with people. Knowing that her best friend was outside sitting in the car waiting to swoop in if she needed him.

Seeing her show Will the house she bought where she could have ultimate privacy to walk around in women’s clothing before her transition was heart-breaking. She just wanted a space place to be herself. And who doesn’t want that?

There were so many great moments to this film but the friendship and love between Will and Harper was a beautiful thing. It was accepting, it was peaceful, and it was love.

I loved it.