Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Just Charlie , the debut feature of British independent director Rebekah Fortune, won the Audience Award at the 2017 Edinburgh International Film Festival. It deals with a challenging subject, gender dysphoria, a subject so challenging but that it fails my computer’s spell-checker. Dysphoria exists - get over it! According to the website NHS Choices (though dysphoria isn’t a choice), gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. It is sometimes known as Gender Identity Disorder, gender incongruence or transgenderism. (Transgenderism also fails my computer’s spell checker – what is wrong with you?) The British film, written by Peter Machen, who developed it from a short, Something Blue , and produced by Karen Newman, who raised completion funds through the website IndieGoGo, tells the story of 13 year old Charlie Lyndsay (newcomer Harry Gilby) who at the start of t...