Valentina

In this heartbreaking Brazilian drama, Valentina (Thiessa Woinbackk) is a teenage girl who was formerly Raul before switching genders. Moving from one low-rent town to another with her single mother, Marcia (Guta Stresser), Valentina copes with the inevitable fallout of chatter concerning her sexuality reaching the ears of new classmates, friends, paranoid parents, and bullies. It's never easy. The bulk of the movie follows Valentina's travails when she tries to enroll in a new high school and is told, because of red tape, the only way she can register as a girl is if she takes summer school classes. So she does that and makes some friends, whom she eventually lets in on her history. That all goes well. But when she is sexually assaulted one night while drunk, the assailant's older brother threatens her and then attacks her later to underscore his seriousness. At this point, you expect a groundswell of support for Valentina, but it doesn't come, at least not in a way that can save her. Not even her estranged father (Romulo Braga), who turns up to be there for her after the assault, proves much good. Add to all that near-violent pushback from other parents against having a transgender girl in school, and it's up to Valentina to fight for herself. Writer-director Cassio Pereiras dos Santos adds some information during the end credits about the particular vulnerability of transgender kids in rural Brazil, which certainly explains the motivation for Valentina. Fortunately, the story is consistently solid and the major characters entirely relatable, especially Marcia, who agonizes over her daughter's pain. There's a pervasive social realism and grittiness to Valentina: this is a world of factory towns and reneged promises by landlords and backstreet butcher shops. There's not a lot of aspiration or hope, which may be why the fury of some parents about Valentina in their presence is so high: it's another thing some people can't understand and can't control. Young Woinbackk offers a superb performance in the lead, her character's guarded stoicism entirely understandable, as well as Valentina's occasional breakdowns into a recognition of her helplessness—until she chooses not to be helpless. Strongly recommended. (T. Keogh)