An audition room is the setting for a stressful and unexpectedly frustrating experience at the opening of J Stevens thoughtful and emotionally tangled drama, Really Happy Someday. Z, a transmasculine stage performer, must confront a new path in life when it appears that his love of performing might unceremoniously swept out from underneath his feet as his body adjusts to life on testosterone. This is a film that delivers its emotional beats so clearly, and it features a breakout performance from Breton Lalama.
When you go into an audition room, there are nerves, but theater performers learn how to combat that in various ways. Sometimes you can wear an outfit that you feel very confident in or you can select a piece of music to sing that you know like the back of your hand. For Z’s latest audition, he selects “On My Own” from the megahit Les Miserables, but his voice cracks so badly that he is cut off before he is even finished singing his cut. Z is so shaken by this that he wonders if he can continue his passion while he is on testosterone. How do you become one with your body and your instrument as your instrument throws curveballs at you?
Z lands a casual job as a bartender after he reveals his embarassment to his partner, Danielle, and Z’s agent’s insensitive comments about pivoting away from musical theater only fuels his annoyance. Can he start a new life just like that? He eventually begins singing lessons with a kind woman named Shelly, and Z finds a safe space to express how he feels. The lessons almost covert, and we don’t know if Z is using them as a lifeline to get back into performing or if he just needs these sessions for himself. That unspoken uncertainty is a welcome change when other feels would feel overwrought or rely on cliches. The script, by Stevens and Lalama, feels so personal but emotionally open. In one scene, Z explains that performing always came naturally to him like walking down a staircase in the dead of night. When you are connected with your body, feeling your way around isn’t as scary as when you don’t know how steep the stairs actually are.
Lalama’s eyes are full of wonder and yearning–what a magnetic lead performance. We sense Z’s confidence when he is comfortable–whether it’s when he feels he knows a song or when Z is flirting with a cute girl–and we see the tentativeness and fear in his body when he feels disjointed from himself. Lalama is such a charming presence, but those eyes telegraph so much honesty. His scenes with Xavier Lopez, as Z’s bartender boss, are easy and charged with a knowing kinship that I could watch for hours.
A lot of media, television, and film has shown us how transgender people feel about seeing themselves, but Really Happy Someday is unique in how it gives consideration to the sounds we hear. When Z expresses that he struggles to confront abandoning his love of performing in order to live as a happy person, it breaks your heart. He says it simply as if he was thinking about it for months or even years. You can almost hear his heart break in two.
Really Happy Someday is lean, truthful, but also optimistic. So often trans and queer people have to sacrifice something in order to soak in their bliss, but Z won’t go down without a fight.
