Monica review: ‘Trace Lysette’s trans homecoming drama has poignant emotional weight’

A homecoming is an interesting, inciting incident for an LGBTQ+ narrative. The prompt is a surefire way for a character to excavate long-buried feelings as they return to a place they no longer belong. 

Andrea Pallaoro’s slow but sure story of a woman reuniting with her family, however, is not an overly sentimental affair. Instead, Monica is a heartfelt and nuanced film that focuses on a quietude at risk of cracking.

Monica (Trace Lysette) is a trans woman whose relationship to home is fraught. Her existence as a sex worker estranged from her family is toppled by a phone call. Her mother, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson), has a growing brain tumour and her health is rapidly declining. 

Arriving at her foreign family home, Leticia (Adriana Barraza), the maid, and Laura (Emily Browning), her sister-in-law she’d never met, give Monica a warm welcome. This is more than can be said for Eugenia who doesn’t recognise her child. However, neither Laura nor Monica give her any further explanation than that she’s another caregiver.

Monica’s new care responsibility is an unexpected weight on her shoulders. Sympathy is paired with the cruel irony of her mother declaring “family comes first,” when she doesn’t even recognise her child standing in front of her. Monica’s brother, Paul (Joshua Close), also confesses he’d not have recognised Monica as his sibling if she passed him on the street. 

Monica is a portrait of observation fixated on the act of looking and recognising. Pallaoro’s film locates Monica’s reflection in mirrors and photo frames, the act of watching and understanding applies to everyone apart from Monica’s mother. But, it to be recognised to be known? A gentle relationship based around care is the bonding glue between Monica and Eugenia as they come to know each other in this different light.

Instead of an overt familial melodrama, Pallaoro and Orlando Tirado tell this story with tenderness. Though, this does lead to the narrative becoming at times sluggish with its elongated pauses. Dramatic tension floats in the air, but the sparseness of dialogue and compressed timeline does leave the desire for a little more.

Subtly intrepid in its navigation of the trans experience, Monica avoids any sense of exploitation. Yet, Monica’s most valiant success is presenting a truly magnificent performance from Lysette. Whether it be silent tears of frustration or roars of impassioned zeal, she is the beating heart of this film.

Lysette instils Monica with a deep loneliness that is slowly unravelled. The character is often alone in the boxy frame of cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi, even when conversing with others. In one moment that can feel like freedom, treasured independence, and in another, feeling being alone when surrounded by company plagues her. It’s a dichotomy Monica is left to navigate and an emotional experience Pallaoro manages to visualise beautifully.

Monica is in UK Cinemas from 15 December.