The Bearded Girl: The Cards She Was Dealt Were Her Suit

By Chris Knight

Rating: B+

There’s a wonderful fairytale quality to the notion of a beautiful woman who wakes every morning, her face speckled with five am shadow (and a very rakish moustache) who must start her day with a shave before facing the world. Her suitor declares that she smells like men’s skin products, and jokes that she’s been rubbing cheeks with a sailor.

But such is the lot of Cleopatra Nightingale (Canada’s Anwen O’Driscoll), the bearded girl of the movie’s title, who is about to become a bearded woman. When she was 10, facial hair marked her as the next matriarch in the family headed by Lady Andre (Jessica Paré). A decade later, unhappy with her narrowly defined role, she lops off her whiskers and flies the coop.

The Bearded Girl is a first feature from Alberta VFX artist Jody Wilson, and I only wish she’d had a bigger budget to fully realize her vision.

There are snatches of Nightmare Alley here, but stripped down, and strongly written characters like Lady Andre’s stalwart companion Newton (Linden Porco) or the country rube whom Cleo convinces to play her long-lost dad (Toby Hargrave) that don’t get nearly as much screen time as they deserve.

But you take the cards you’re dealt, even if as in Cleo’s case, they’re her suit. (Get it?) Her flight includes taking up with a know-less-than-nothing named Blaze (Keenan Tracey) and trying on the role of the trad girlfriend, for as long as she can stand it.

Meanwhile, her mother and sister are looking to bring her home, not least because there’s a greedy developer after their land. (There might be one or two plot points more than strictly necessary in this one, which contributes to the crowding out of smaller moments, and pushes the film to a slightly lower score.)

The movie premiered at Montreal’s Fantasia Festival last summer and played the Calgary Underground Film Festival this spring, where terms like “queer cinema” and “genderfluid” were bandied about. I’d be concerned about applying those terms myself, if only because they might alienate as many potential audience members as they attract.

The fact of the matter is, The Bearded Girl is a remarkably homey and inviting tale, and it deserves as wide a viewership as possible.

Straight men, if you find yourself deeply attracted to Jessica Paré in a full beard, that’s something you’ll just have to work through on your own.

The Bearded Girl. Directed by Jody Wilson. Starring Anwen O’Driscoll, Jessica Paré, and Keenan Tracey. In theatres May 8.