We love teen angst, especially with its queer teen angst!
Tommy Dorfman is making her directorial debut next week with I Wish You All the Best, a coming-of-age film all about struggling with gender identity and the desperate search for who you are and your place in the world.
As a trans woman, this is a struggle that Dorfman is intimately familiar with. Based on Mason Deaver’s 2019 novel of the same name, I Wish You All the Best was both written and directed by Dorfman and follows nonbinary teen Ben DeBacker (Corey Fogelmanis) as they fall in love, form lasting friendships, and struggle to find themselves. After getting kicked out of their house and moving in with their estranged sister, Hannah (Alexandra Daddario) and her husband, Thomas (Cole Sprouse), Ben learns to navigate life with the help of an eccentric art teacher (Lena Dunham) and a fellow student (Miles Gutierrez-Riley).
“When I first read Mason’s book, I knew that I had the unique ability to adapt and bring this story to life on screen, being trans and from the South, so much of the world Mason created felt familiar," Dorfman said. "The book also stood out as the first of its kind with a nonbinary protagonist Benjamin DeBacker, as its heroine — a book I desperately needed as a kid and the movie I had to make no matter what, a movie that didn’t exist yet in the canon and needed to.”
Lionsgate
The film premieres in theaters on November 7, but to tide us over, PRIDE has an exclusive clip where Ben opens up to his art teacher, played by the always funny Dunham.
As Ben struggles with normal teen angst — with the added layer of queer drama, parents who disowned them, and gender dysphoria — Dunham’s character tries to cheer them up.
After she tells Ben, “You are brave. You are a warrior,” they admit to feeling like their outside doesn’t match how they feel internally. “Sometimes I look at myself like in the mirror and I don’t recognize what I see,” Ben says. “Like it doesn’t look like what I feel in my head.”
Dunham, of course, makes a joke to lighten the mood after giving some solid advice about getting out there and living life. The clip is funny, irreverent, touching, and tear-filled, a perfect encapsulation of a film that is sure to both tug at your heartstrings and have you giggling.
Getting ready to feel all the feels!
While there are more and more queer main characters every year, there is still next to no nonbinary ones, so Dorfman’s film will bring much-needed representation to the silver screen.
