Princess Cyd

Trailer.

Available Summary:

"A teenager moves to Chicago for the summer and finds a poignant mentor in her aunt and a sweet love interest in a girl who works in the neighborhood." -Netflix.

Jack's Summary:

I really, really enjoyed this film. The protagonist is an initially headstrong, arrogant young woman who is beginning to explore her sexuality, and who is healing from trauma. I interpret her aunt as being asexual, although that is not canonically stated.

The main love interest of Cyd is a gender non-conforming person named Katie, played by American non-binary actor Ro White. In this interview, the director said that he told White to, "rewind to a year or two before you fully acknowledged your identity as a non-binary person," explaining to the interviewer, "Katie is a girl in the film, but cut to two years later, I imagine they will have found themselves."

An encounter where Katie is assumed to be a guy by strangers, and happily does not correct them, leads to a scene where Cyd and her aunt briefly comment on Katie's gender identity, unbothered and supportive in a way which I found wonderfully understated. I would say that Katie is potentially relatable for a wide range of gender-diverse and gender non-conforming people.

The most confronting parts of this film involve an offscreen sexual assault (Katie texts Cyd, asking for help to escape the situation), and a discussion of unmanaged mental illness and domestic conflict which escalated into gun violence. Towards the end of the movie, Cyd reveals to Katie that her brother fatally shot her mother and then turned the gun on himself. Cyd also reveals that her parents had considered sending her brother to military school, as a solution for his mental illnesses and mood swings, which is hardly an appropriate response to someone who needs clinical help. This is one reason that I feel mental illness is not demonised by this storyline; it is clear that her brother did not get the help he needed, resulting in horrific consequences for his family and himself. Furthermore, Katie has self-harm scars which do not deter Cyd's affection and attraction. They are simply allowed to exist, without being stigmatised or questioned. There is a happy ending.