Anything’s Possible

July 18, 2022

In Home, Prime Video, Review, Streaming, This Week by Dov KornitsLeave a Comment

… a cute and bubbly affair that, like Love, Simon, implores you to have a good time.
John Noonan
Year: 2022
Director: Billy Porter
Cast:

Eva Reign, Abubakr Ali, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kelly Lamor Wilson

Distributor: Prime Video
Format:
Released: July 22, 2022
Running Time: 96 minutes
Worth: $14.00

FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

… a cute and bubbly affair that, like Love, Simon, implores you to have a good time.

Marking his evolution from actor to director, Billy Porter steps behind the camera for this sweet and touching teen rom-com which navigates the genre away from the cis norm.

Kelsa (Eva Reign) is entering her final year of high school and everything, it’s fair to say, is looking rosy. She’s got close friends, her grades are good, and she’s got the chance to go to the college of her choice. The only thing missing from her high school experience is a boyfriend.

Although she has never been kissed, Kelsa is cautious about running after the first baby blues she meets. Being trans, the teenager is concerned that anyone who would want to go out with her is looking to score ‘woke points’ or simply fetishise her. But then puppy-eyed Khal (Abubakr Ali) enters the scene, and Kelsa begins to reconsider her position.

Anything’s Possible steers clear of the will-they-won’t-they cliches by throwing the two together quickly and focusing on the aftermath of Kelsa and Khal going public. Happily, there is little time spent on Khal pontificating about his attraction to Kelsa. When his friend, Otis, questions his sexuality, his ‘concerns’ are immediately dismissed. It’s an irrelevant question for today’s generation. He fancies her and that’s all there is to it. However, while Khal truly cares for Kelsa, the film underlines how he begins to, unwittingly, take the driver’s seat in her journey through high school. Meaning well, he ends up making life a lot more difficult for her when he shares one of her vlogs on a Reddit post.

Porter and screenwriter Ximena Garcia Lecuona rightly stay away from the ‘bury your gays’ trope, wherein Kelsa’s life could merely have been a tragedy to spur Khal on to have a long hard look at his life. Anything’s Possible is about celebrating the everyday lives of the LGBTQIA+ community. To be frank, along with the likes of Pose and the recent Queer as Folk reboot, it’s a refreshing experience. Not that the film doesn’t have some points to make.

The political hotbed of dehumanising views about the trans community that has bled into everyday discourse, led by certain sitcom writers and authors of fantastical fiction, has become depressing and deadly for many. Porter distils this rhetoric, allowing it to swill around the microcosm of high school life. Sure, this is still a rom-com at the end of the day, so the stakes are never too high, but the film highlights how quickly some people can use a person’s trans identity against them to score points.

Admittedly, there are enough high school cliches onscreen to signpost precisely where you think this will end. However, even a discussion about sex between our two leads is sensitively portrayed with both being able to be open with each other.

Overall, Anything’s Possible is a cute and bubbly affair that, like Love, Simon, implores you to have a good time. And when it ends on a big musical number, who can say no to that.

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