REVIEW: Something You Said Last Night, a quiet revelation

For the entire history of cinema, there hasn’t really been a trans genre. There have been films with trans characters, from the Christine Jorgensen Story, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and the Academy Award-winning the Silence of the Lambs. But all of these films are very concerned with depicting the more sensational aspects of being transgender (or in the case of Life of Brian, making a joke out of it). None of these films show what it’s like to live your average everyday life from the perspective of a trans person.

Carmen Madonia in Something You Said Last Night, courtesy of Elevation Pictures.

Something You Said Last Night, which premiered at TIFF in 2022, is a film that shows what it’s like to be an average person who happens to be trans. But it’s not about showing the transition or the prejudice trans people face. It’s about a few days in the life of Renata (played by newcomer Carmen Madonia). She’s a young trans woman who takes a vacation to cottage country with her family. At no point does the film showcase her issues with transphobic people or the perspective of transphobes. It just shows her dealing with her family.

She’s struggling financially, and is hoping to stay independent from her family despite leaning on them for support. The vacation finds her at a crossroads, as she frequently argues with her mother (played by Ramona Milano from Due South). Her sister (played by Paige Evans from Fatal Family Reunion) is also going through some challenges at school, one that also increase the family’s drama.

This is a simple, quiet film about the taking a vacation with the people who always get on your nerves but you can’t help but loving. At no point is Renata’s transness mentioned or highlighted, it’s just a fact. This small intimate drama feels revolutionary in that regard, as if it’s foreshadowing what trans cinema will evolve into. I spoke to the director Luis De Filippis who says that that was her intention right from the beginning. She tells me she also explored this in one of her short films (2017’s For Nonna Anna). In both films, the main characters are trans woman, but that’s not the most important thing about them.

Joe Parro, Paige Evans, Carmen Madonia and Romano Milano in Something You Said Last Night, courtesy of Elevation Pictures.

“Really both characters are seen as intrinsic members of their family, they’re sisters, they’re daughters, they’re granddaughters first and trans women second.” It’s a film that takes a huge step forward in representation. We have many films now that depict the experience and struggles of transition, from the Danish Girl to Boys Don’t Cry, from All About My Mother to Tangerine. But few films out there exclude that experience, and show regular life from a trans person’s perspective.

De Filippis adds that she came up with the idea for the film from an image that popped into her head she had never seen before. “This image of Renata and Sienna sharing a bed together and Ren being on her phone and I don’t know, it just popped into my brain one day and I was like ‘I’ve never seen that before.'” For her, it was important to show the minutiae of life, the small details. Eating breakfast, swimming on the beach, life itself.

The camera focuses on all the small moments, following the characters around as if it’s a fly on the wall. It feels incredibly intimate and poignant, despite the small scale of everything. It’s a powerful and immersive viewing experience, a rather spectacular watch. This isn’t a film to help convince a transphobe of the struggles of transition, but it does show that trans people are people just like everybody else.

This film is an outstanding, quiet watch that packs a lot of power. Filled with intense yet minimalist performances, this Canadian film is one to keep an eye out for. This film gets a 4/5, you can watch it in cinemas now and you can listen to my interview with the director below.