Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Movies about queer people overcoming adversity have kind of reached their quota, at least in the United States. Audiences here are much more eager to see far more nuanced stories about people who happen to be gay or trans, and have seen enough movies about LGBT people being treated horribly because of who they are.

That’s the only thing, really, that makes Valentina a little tricky. The target audience of this Brazilian film is clearly Brazilian, but anything I have to say about it will be aimed at American audiences. I’d say it’s a story worth telling around the world, but its sociopolitical context must always be kept in mind. I don’t presume to know how many movies are made in Brazil about trans teenagers, but I’d be inclined to say it’s not very many.

To be fair, not a lot of American movies are made about trans teens specifically either. And what of parents with trans teen children? Should they watch this? I honestly have no idea. I suppose it depends on the stage of emotional development said teens happen to be in, and how triggered they might be by depictions of trauma that parallels their own experiences.

On the upside, Valentina has no violence in it—well, at least not physical violence. A case could certainly be made that it features emotional violence, especially in a key scene in which the title character is deeply humiliated. Valentina has moved to a rural town with her mother for her mother’s nursing job, and when the town catches wind of her being trans, they respond with swift bigotry. Valentina is essentially the story of how Valentina and her mother cope with that.

More and more, when I see a foreign film, I find myself wishing I had more of a cultural context, to get a sense of how the film fits into, or connects with, its country of origin. Valentina becomes best friends with a gay Black boy (Ronaldo Bonafro), and I found myself wondering how Brazil’s history of race relations compares to that of the U.S.—even though this film depicts no racism whatsoever. A couple of Google searches later, I learned that Brazil abolished slavery 23 years after the U.S., but they did it without the massive bloodshed of civil war. As with any colonized country, of course, they are also still reckoning with that history. How much of their cultural discourse today examines such things, though? Valentina focuses entirely on the issue of gender identity, and reveals when it comes to that, things are pretty bleak: 82% of trans kids drop out of school, and the average life expectancy of trans people there is 35. Reading that just before the end title credits is a bit of. gut punch. (Side note: it should be noted that statistic is widely reported and poorly sourced, originally referring to Latin America as a whole, and its truly original sourcing and meaning is complicated. This film—and many others—would have done well to cite the source.)

One thing about the film Valentina that certainly adds to its credibility, regardless of the audience, is that the person playing the title character, Thiessa Woinbackk, is actually a young trans woman. Not only that, but she’s apparently a fairly popular Brazilian YouTuber, who last year won the Best Performance Award at Outfest. I hesitate to say the film itself would have been worse had they used a cisgender woman actor for the role, but casting Woinbackk makes it easy to feel better about it. As it happens, she does a good job.

As does the woman who plays Valentina’s mother (Guta Stresser). That said, Valentina is generally quiet, without any score to speak of, seemingly without a lot asked of its supporting players. The kids playing Valentina’s high school friends have a natural screen presence, at least. Most of the rest of the cast seem just to be performing the task of getting their lines right, Stresser and Woinbackk being notable exceptions. The cinematography is all done with hand-held cameras, giving the film an almost deadpan documentary feel. On the one hand, this means there’s no emotional manipulation. On the other hand, it’s not as easy to connect on an emotional level.

That leaves us to focus on the issues at hand, specifically Valentina’s dashed hopes for integrating seamlessly into a new community, when her transness is discovered. A lot is made of her estranged parents being still technically married, which thus requires both their signatures so she can be registered at school under what they call her “social name.” But, the way one of her classmates finds out, a deeply uncomfortable scene involving excessive drinking and what amounts to sexual assault, renders the whole signature issue irrelevant. Valentina ends on a note of hopefulness that comes as a relief, but you do have to spend a lot of time scared for her before it reaches that point.

*Valentina attempts to blend into her new community.*

Overall: B