davidehrlich’s review published on Letterboxd:
Cisgender audiences are confronted by an inescapable irony as they watch “Girl,” the arrestingly empathetic debut from Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont. Few narrative dramas (if any) have more sensitively explored the nuances of growing up transgender, the bravery required to transition, and the struggle for self-acceptance that can motivate or define that process. Likewise, few narrative dramas (if any) have more palpably distilled the pain of being deadnamed, the humiliation of being reduced to your body, and the cruelty of being misrepresented as something that you’re not.
So how do we, who can only share in such experiences second-hand, square all that with the fact that the lead character — a 16-year-old ballerina who’s impatiently waiting for her gender-confirmation surgery — is played by a cisgender male actor?