Coming-of-age tales are fairly commonplace in cinema with explorations of self and sex in semi-recent films like Porky’s (1981), A Goofy Movie (1995), and The People’s Joker (2024). These stories feature young adults getting into a variety of hijinks either in their pursuit of the opposite sex or going on a journey of self-discovery, each utilizing elements that are fairly universal to the young adult experience. Cut from a similar cloth as Booksmart (2019) and Bottoms (2023) comes the feature-length directorial debut of Siobhan McCarthy (Maya Hawk: Sweet Tooth), the charmingly hilarious She’s the He, debuting at SXSW 2025. By taking the baseline (and baseless) arguments of conservative pundits and the ignorant regarding the trans community, McCarthy creates a high school coming-of-age comedy apropos for the times, maintaining an honest heart and delivering genuine laughs in the process.
L-R: Nico Carney as Alex and Misha Osherovich as Ethan in SHE’S THE HE. Photo courtesy of She’s The He LLC.
High school senior Alex (Nico Carney) is not only worried that he’s about to go to college a virgin, but that his classmates think that he and his best friend Ethan (Misha Osherovich) are dating. Inspired by the prior antics of classmate Davis (Mark Indelicato), Alex convinces Ethan to tell everyone they’re transgender women in order to gain access to the girls’ locker room and, he hopes, get closer to Sasha (Malia Pyles), the girl he likes. But what neither he nor Ethan expected is for this lie to reveal a poignant truth for Ethan that will change the trajectory of their lives forever.
Let’s get the bullshit out of the way. By “bullshit,” I mean the inspiration from McCarthy’s film, the bathroom panic created and propagated by the ignorant and downright hateful. Members of the transgender community have always been around, though they are more welcomed in societies with fewer Christian values and a higher understanding of the complexities of gender-related science (see: the fakaleitī of Tonga). Therefore, in an effort to keep “bad men” away from women’s bathrooms, the trans community (specifically transwoman and to a greater lesser extent transmen) have been subject to legislation that would prevent transfem individuals from using a women’s bathroom. Folks, there’s only one political side focused on genitals and it’s the one demanding to see them before women and girls (a) enter a bathroom or (b) compete in sports. This, of course, continues the very dunderheaded belief that there are only two genders when there are, in fact, a spectrum due to the way that chromosomes actually work (beyond the binary XX and XY that’s covered in basic science courses). The point is that bad people will do bad things regardless of whether they have access legally or not. Generally speaking, if someone goes into a bathroom, they just want to use the bathroom. So how does this dovetail into McCarthy’s actually heartwarming and hilarious script? There’s a difference between being a stupid kid and being an asshole, and that’s the line their characters walk.
L-R: Misha Osherovich as Ethan and Nico Carney as Alex in SHE’S THE HE. Photo courtesy of She’s The He LLC.
In the same vein of Rachel Sennott’s PJ creating a fake fight club for women in Bottoms, Alex just wants a chance to prove that he’s not gay and decides to go the transgender route, not out of transphobia, but because he wants to be seen as non-threatening when approaching Sasha. This makes him stupid, not an asshole. Why? The biggest difference between Alex before this choice and after is a stroke of confidence. He lacks it before, gains it after, which directly connects to the overall message of the film: everyone deserves to live with confidence and self-respect. Here, McCarthy uses Alex as the goofball, the jester, the one who will make mistakes over and over again, enabling the real star of the film, Osherovich’s Ethan, to slowly glide to the front. The funny thing being, of course, that Ethan is the focal point of the film – they are the first character we meet, they are introduced in the privacy of their room, and McCarthy sets the stage for the elevated reality (think: magical realism) through the repeated use of animations around what Ethan does (from starting a on a CD to visual flair added to clothes). Alex only gets prominence, at least at first, because of the way Ethan pulls themselves inward and the frequency by which Ethan is either talked over and ignored (by Alex and others). We’ve seen this dynamic so many times in buddy comedies (one is the quiet one with the job to ground the other, one is the abrasive one with the job to get the other out of their shell) and McCarthy uses this dynamic to great effect. Neither character is too much of their archetype to grate, neither actor too focused on caricature to fail to make their performances anchored. But what makes the film magical, truly absolutely magical, is that Alex’s idiocy leads to a poignant moment of clarity for Ethan upon realizing that they’re trans. From here, McCarthy’s script takes a turn wherein the coming-of-age elements and the sex comedy elements combine with a deft sharpness to explore the concept of gender and gender identity.
What this looks like is quite simple — there’s the masculine version of what it means to be a woman and then there’s the truth. Having “come out” in the girls’ locker room, Ethan is taken aside by Sasha to work on her makeup and, during, the two chat about womanhood (Ethan still in her awakening, Sasha testing the waters for bullshit). Here, Ethan talks down on her looks, to which Sasha cooly replies that she’s a woman already for being down on her looks. This could be a simple throwaway line, but it also ties directly in the subplot involving Ethan’s mother Mary (Suzanne Cryer) who routinely denigrates herself around Ethan and Alex. This directly connects to the concept that women are hard on themselves for their looks and that’s largely due to the commodification of women as sexual objects, their respective “value” tied only to how much someone wants to screw them. Later, when Ethan is talking with Tatiana Ringsby’s Forest, Ethan espouses how they’ve longed for the comfort of connecting with their friends, to hold hands, to tell them they love them, to dance without concern of how it looked or seemed — things which she says is easier for women than men. Again, the perspective is that women are allowed to be “soft” while men are not. Given how the women and non-binary characters are presented by McCarthy’s cast, “soft” is only one of several words that would be used to describe them, but it would not be the definitive term. McCarthy, through their fools and heroes, has crafted a story that doesn’t dumb itself down for laughs, doesn’t shy away from asking hard questions, and never once presumes the worst of people. This is why it never feels meanspirited, even with a concept that could, on paper, seem like it’s feeding the very bathroom panic that inspired it.
L-R: Nico Carney as Alex and Misha Osherovich as Ethan in SHE’S THE HE. Photo courtesy of She’s The He LLC.
What may trouble some audiences is the manner in which the resolution of interpersonal conflict comes to a head. Not the immediate act that quells things (that’s positively brilliant as a reminder that girls aren’t the dainty flowers gender-watchers would have folks believe), but the act of aggression that precedes it — an act that is predicated by the premise of the film. Though McCarthy maintains an even tone throughout She’s the He via the animation use, color palate, and general narrative attitude that denotes a lack of realistic danger, the presentation of a conservative’s worst fear isn’t as non-threatening as McCarthy tries to make it through the judicious use of non-toxic masculinity amid a very toxic sequence. This is where one thinks of Emma Seligman’s Bottoms as She’s the He employs a similar elevated reality without the consequences one expects from an anchored story. Admittedly, what follows after the altercation can be waved off as typical coming-of-age hijinks, supported by the way all the characters behave in the time after, but it’s still a sequence that is hard to reconcile with the less silly and heartwarming moments that precede it.
Before wrapping, it’s worth noting that She’s the He doesn’t just proclaim its allyship by telling a LGBTQIA+ story, its cast is a collection of members of the community, which certainly helps quell any concerns one might have about who the target audience is. The audience is anyone who wants to laugh and who may just be wondering a little bit about why they may feel uncomfortable in their skin. Movies like Bottoms, Booksmart, and 2024’s I Saw the TV Glow each speak to the ways in which our adolescence is fraught with uncertainty as we cross the threshold into adulthood and that so many films are approaching the universal feeling from an LGBTQIA+ POV, often with members of said community, speaks to how important such a perspective is. In her feature-length debut, McCarthy may have created a generationally-viewed masterpiece that will be looked at as transformative for Gen Alpha (2010-present) and beyond. Why? For no other reason than it reminds, with one of the best jokes in the entire film, that the first Pride was a motherfucking riot. So, let’s lead with love, let’s open our hearts, and shut the panic down.
Screening during SXSW 2025.
For more information, head either to the official She’s the He SXSW webpage or film website.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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