Something You Said Last Night – first-look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

Some­thing You Said Last Night – first-look review

22 Sep 2022

Words by Marina Ashioti

A smiling person in a car, their eyes closed and head tilted back.
A smiling person in a car, their eyes closed and head tilted back.
Luis De Fil­ip­pis’ film is a great addi­tion to a trans­gen­der cin­e­mat­ic canon in that it refus­es to rely on overt explo­rations of trauma.

The hol­i­day resort has proven to be an extreme­ly reli­able source of inspi­ra­tion for film­mak­ers who seek to explore fam­i­ly dynam­ics in a pres­sure cook­er envi­ron­ment, espe­cial­ly when fore­ground­ing a pro­tag­o­nist whose life has been under­scored by the feel­ing of being oth­ered’. This is how we meet Renat­ta (Car­men Mado­nia) in Luis De Fil­ip­pis’ Some­thing You Said Last Night, a trans twen­ty-some­thing who, like most of us, is glued to her phone and vape.

Renat­ta was recent­ly fired from her job and tries to keep that fact close to her chest as she tags along to a week-long fam­i­ly hol­i­day. Her live­ly and viva­cious moth­er Mona (Ramona Milano) plays old Ital­ian pop hits on the dri­ve to the sea­side resort as sweet go-with-the-flow dad Gui­do (Joey Par­ro) sings along, while Renat­ta and her rebel­lious sis­ter Siena (Paige Evans) exchange smiles and eye-rolls before also burst­ing into song.

The film’s set­ting does unfor­tu­nate­ly mean that cer­tain nar­ra­tive beats become sub­ject to pre­dictabil­i­ty and rep­e­ti­tion, yet the script’s sharp lev­i­ty keeps the film from veer­ing into trite or one-dimen­sion­al ter­ri­to­ry. Rather than depict­ing a spec­tac­u­larised tale of accep­tance, or a melo­dra­mat­ic com­ing of self sto­ry – nar­ra­tives which we’ve grown more than accus­tomed to with on-screen rep­re­sen­ta­tions of transness – De Fil­ip­pis opts for a sweet and low-key affair that com­fort­ably leans into a heart­warm­ing por­tray­al of the trans mun­dane. Accep­tance has already been estab­lished in this fam­i­ly, and mov­ing beyond that nar­ra­tive realm allows the film to blos­som into a great addi­tion to a trans­gen­der cin­e­mat­ic canon that refus­es to rely on overt explo­rations of trauma.

Although Renat­ta is always typ­ing away, we’re nev­er privy to whom she’s tex­ting. We’re instead left to imag­ine, per­haps a net­work of queer and trans-iden­ti­fy­ing folk, whose under­stand­ing doesn’t rely on accep­tance, but on a mutu­al lived expe­ri­ence. Even if your fam­i­ly is on the more accept­ing side – Renatta’s close­ness to her par­ents and sis­ter is like­ly to spring feel­ings of envy for trans/​queer audi­ences who didn’t luck out on that front – fam­i­ly is still fam­i­ly, which makes them annoy­ing by default. With cer­tain details being kept just out of reach for an audi­ence that has an oth­er­wise unob­tru­sive and inti­mate win­dow into the lives and rela­tion­ship dynam­ics of this Cana­di­an-Ital­ian fam­i­ly, a sense of agency grounds itself in the protagonist’s right to keep some things private.

De Fil­ip­pis, who pref­aced the screen­ing of her film at the San Sebas­t­ian Film Fes­ti­val by say­ing that this is a love let­ter to her own fam­i­ly, directs with sen­si­tiv­i­ty, con­fi­dence and tact, offer­ing a slice of life rep­re­sen­ta­tion that brims with authen­tic­i­ty. When it comes to the mechan­ics of transness, the fact that they aren’t a pri­ma­ry pre­oc­cu­pa­tion does not sig­nal their absence. Depic­tions of microag­gres­sions as well as the sub­tle yet inher­ent lone­li­ness of the trans expe­ri­ence are nat­u­ral­ly present, just as much as moments of ten­der­ness and joy. 

When Siena starts vom­it­ing from hav­ing too much to drink, we’re braced for the name call­ing that is bound to ensue from a group of local young men as Renat­ta goes up to ask one of them to dri­ve them back, but she remains large­ly unphased. Back at the resort, Renat­ta runs a bath for her sis­ter, and the two share a beau­ti­ful moment in the tub. Rarely does an exchange of words have the abil­i­ty to con­vey the depths of famil­ial inti­ma­cy that can linger in a silent look of reas­sur­ance, or a sim­ple stroke of the shoulder.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, month­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.

You might like