This evaluation was revealed on January 23, 2024, out of the Sundance Movie Competition. Will & Harper is now on Netflix.

One of the vital ecstatic responses I’ve ever seen at Sundance got here on the world premiere of the documentary Will & Harper, Josh Greenbaum’s movie a couple of cross-country highway journey taken by Will Ferrell and his trans finest pal Harper Steele. Heat receptions are sometimes assured for film stars and progressive causes at Sundance, however one can often inform when the applause is dutiful and when it’s real. On this case, the standing ovation was speedy and explosive. The competition viewers clearly ate this one up, partially as a result of Will & Harper additionally occurs to be a really humorous film about two comedians caught on a highway journey collectively.

Ferrell and Steele each began on the similar time on Saturday Evening Reside within the Nineteen Nineties — one as an actor, the opposite as a author — lengthy earlier than Steele transitioned on the age of 61. Steele shortly turned somebody who might write finest to Ferrell’s strengths (she remembers that in Ferrell’s first season many on the SNL employees didn’t discover him humorous) and was later named head author of the present, earlier than departing in 2008 to work for Ferrell’s comedy outlet Humorous or Die. (She additionally wrote or co-wrote a number of of the actor’s movies, together with my beloved Eurovision: The Story of Fireplace Saga.) As Ferrell tells it, the Iowa-born Steele was one thing of a troublesome man on the time, somebody who liked consuming “shitty beer” and hitch-hiking and highway tripping throughout the nation. And whereas Harper acknowledges that “there was this different persona that I don’t very similar to anymore,” she additionally insists she hasn’t modified that a lot. “I used to be at all times Harper Steele,” she says. “Will was at all times buddies with Harper Steele.” And the previous shit-kicker hasn’t totally gone away. “As an alternative of an asshole, I’ll be a bitch,” she quips.

The thought for the documentary grew out of Ferrell’s want to accompany Steele on her first journey throughout the nation after transitioning. She nonetheless loves nation roads and dive bars and freeway diners. “I simply don’t know if it loves me again now,” she admits. “I don’t know if I can go to those self same locations as Harper.” These sorts of significant insights are sometimes accompanied by funnier observations. “After I highway tripped as a man, I introduced two T-shirts, three underwears, and one pair of denims,” Steele says. Issues have modified, she notes, because the digital camera cuts to a whole suitcase full of ladies’s sneakers. Early within the movie, speaking to Steele’s children about whether or not they concern for her security out on the highway, Ferrell asks, “Does it assist that I do jujitsu? I am going twice a month.”

Greenbaum, who directed 2021’s Barb & Star Go to Vista del Mar and final yr’s Strays, clearly has a really feel for buddy comedies and highway films. There are repeated bits involving the various totally different types of Pringles, and Will Ferrell’s petulant want to eat at Dunkin’ Donuts. Their previous SNL friends present up at a number of factors. They make some extent of giving Lorne Michaels an uncomfortably lengthy hug. They ask Kristen Wiig to compose a theme track for them: “One thing up-tempo, jazzy and enjoyable, nevertheless it additionally has to make you cry, and with a bit of twang.” They then spend the remainder of the film making an attempt to get her again on the telephone.

Their itinerary is designed to let Steele re-experience a world she used to know so effectively. At a Pacers sport, she notes that she was as soon as one other member of the military of bros within the stands. She says she doesn’t know the way these of us will see her now, however she additionally provides that she doesn’t know the way she’ll see herself. Later, as Steele enters an Oklahoma bar festooned with Trump indicators and Accomplice flags, Ferrell waits outdoors, able to pounce if the state of affairs will get harmful. Lo and behold, the crowded bar shortly embraces Harper Steele. They’re all toasting one another and doing pictures by the point Ferrell joins them, resulting in an entire host of double takes. “The joke’s on me,” Steele says afterward. “I’m not afraid of those folks. I’m afraid of being myself.”

The conversations the 2 have on their journey are admirably frank. They speak about high and backside surgical procedure, misgendering, physique dysmorphia, and the fears Harper had earlier than popping out. These exchanges by no means really feel staged, or compulsory. Steele tells Ferrell that he’s free to ask her all of the issues that he would possibly in any other case be afraid to ask a trans individual, and Ferell does so, clumsily however sweetly. However he additionally appears genuinely terrified to study that his finest pal for all these years was in a lot ache that she was considering suicide. The movie’s strongest achievement is maybe additionally its most simple: the easy sight of two buddies speaking, brazenly and gently, about all of the issues on their minds.

Steele admits she has lots of privilege, and that having an excellent pal like Ferrell accompanying her on this journey is one in all them. He attracts extra consideration than she does, though this does backfire at one level in Texas, when he makes an attempt to eat a large steak dressed as Sherlock Holmes (don’t ask) they usually instantly discover dozens of cellphones creepily pointed at them. The incident additionally results in information reviews and torrents of grossly merciless transphobic tweets hurled of their course.

Whereas the movie principally presents peculiar folks as accepting, tolerant, and non-judgmental, it does acknowledge the risks that trans folks usually face. On the Pacers sport, Ferrell chats with Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, who appears well mannered sufficient when the actor explains that he’s accompanying his pal on her first road-trip post-transition. Later, they give the impression of being up Holcomb on-line and uncover that the governor has signed a legislation banning gender-affirming care. It’s only one rebuke in a litany of ongoing circumstances across the nation. Certainly, simply three days earlier than Park Metropolis itself cheered on Will & Harper, the Utah State Legislature handed an anti-trans rest room legislation.

Will & Harper is in lots of senses a really standard image. The soundtrack accompanying them on their journey is fairly on-the-nose. “Shelter From the Storm,” “America,” “The Weight,” and “Truck Drivin’ Son of a Gun” all make appearances, as does “Luck Be a Girl Tonight” for the compulsory Vegas interlude. At their post-screening Q&A, Steele and Ferrell recalled that after they first determined to do the movie, they tried to think about comedian set-ups and conditions upfront, earlier than realizing that the easiest way to method such a challenge was simply to let occasions take their course. However the duo’s journey does have a recognizable narrative form, main towards a not-entirely sudden emotional climax. The movie’s familiarity might be a part of its design. It clearly needs to assist change hearts and minds, and discover buy with audiences that may in any other case keep away from a film with a topic like this. Judging by the rapturous Sundance response, it has a good shot.