Mark Reviews Movies: ANYTHING'S POSSIBLE

Anything's Possible, Orion Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 21, 2022

On the surface, Anything's Possible is a fairly revolutionary romantic comedy, in that one of its central lovers is a transgender teenager. Ximena García Lecuona's screenplay initially treats this fact as if it just that—a simple fact. Kelsa, the teenage girl (played in a somewhat stilted debut leading performance from Eva Reign), doesn't want to be seen or known as a concept—"that trans girl" or some person to see as an idea, such as a representation of courage or a figure of disdain or an identity that some might pigeonhole as entirely sexual. She just wants to be herself: smart, a bit creative, obsessed with animals, and set on a career on as a zoologist.

Lecuona and first-time director Billy Porter respect all of this at first, and the very topic of the story's lead character being a transgender girl barely figures into the conversations, the themes, or the plot of this movie. It's just a love story, about a teenage girl who, for assorted reasons, hasn't thought much about dating and the teenage boy who becomes smitten with her and unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet.

At a time when the very concept of gender identity has been politicized or just dismissed outright by people of certain political persuasions, this movie's early treatment of Kelsa and her own identity, as a trans girl who wants nothing to do with those politics, does feel like an act of defiance. Kelsa definitely won't be defined by those who would deny her identity and/or existence as a transgender person. On the flip side of that, she won't be exploited by those who might want to score some social and/or political points for treating her in a special way, being her friend or more, or fighting some kind of battle on her behalf.

The movie simply lets Kelsa be the person she is, and that move feels like a big deal in its own right. Eventually, though, Lecuona contrives and otherwise forces a lot of the political, cultural, and social discussions the movie so definitively evades, and that decision, while addressing and tackling those matters from a consistent perspective, turns this story into something else entirely. Since the movie hasn't prepared us or even itself for that conversation, the shift in both purpose and tone doesn't work. It feels as if it belongs the kind of movie this one has so carefully avoided becoming.

The initial setup is perfectly ordinary, which goes much further in making a point than any kind of overt statement might. Kelsa is a high school senior in Pittsburgh, starting to apply to colleges in New York City and Los Angeles. Since she's of the current generation of teens, she runs an online video channel where she talks about her love of animals, especially in what makes each species unique, and, after some time of just seeing her in classes and with friends, the process of socially transitioning with the help of hormone blockers.

None of this is treated as a surprise, a shock, or some kind of plot twist. Indeed, even Khal (Abubakr Ali), the teenaged boy who develops a crush on Kelsa after spending some quality time with her as a partner in art class, doesn't think twice about his feelings for her after finding her video channel.

Instead, the conflicts here are minimal and the stuff of the usual high school drama, if they also become increasingly invasive and push the movie toward its more overt statement-making. Em (Courtnee Carter), one of Kelsa's best friends, also has a crush on Khal, and when his affections for Kelsa are made apparent, the friend becomes jealous of and hostile toward Kelsa. Meanwhile, Khal's own best friend Otis (Grant Reynolds) doesn't understand his attraction to Kelsa. Mostly, though, the story just has the two new and young lovers going through the awkward first steps of dating, only slightly complicated by Kelsa's worry that Khal might have some other motives in mind or put a stop to things when they become more serious.

It's the start of a potentially charming and thoughtful romance, and unfortunately, that's also where that story more or less ends. Those aforementioned complications—the two now-former friends, mainly—slowly and then completely get in the way of Kelsa and Khal's romance. She becomes the subject of controversy, in a matter that feels ripped from current headlines, revolving around her use the women's facilities, and some rumors start swirling about Khal's motives and sexuality in regards to dating someone who is transgender. All of it escalates so quickly and with such sudden weight of purpose that Lecuona's screenplay sometimes feels as if it's catching up with its own points.

As for the love story and how its ordinary portrayal reflects a deeper point, it's pushed into the backdrop for the political debate, only to re-emerge in the form of a hasty montage (which doesn't nearly justify the movie's final push for some bittersweet reality). In trying to make an overt and strongly voiced point, Anything's Possible misses the potential strength of just existing as a sweet and considered love story.

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