Rūrangi, a quietly radical drama from New Zealand, is an empathetic portrait of a young trans man on a literal and spiritual return to his New Zealand home town. It was originally released as a five part web series, but has now been assembled into a feature for the festival circuit.
Caz (Elz Carrad) has careened his car off the road as he is approaching the titular remote dairy community. We can already sense his trepidation and unease; he avoids eye contact with the guy towing his car, hoping he won’t be recognised after a decade-long absence. In the years since he has been away, he has missed his mother’s funeral, and has not spoken to his father since transitioning. Navigating this reunion will be fraught with emotional earthquakes but the real success of director Max Curren’s drama is its cliché-resistant celebration of queerness while also exploring deeper, interrelated issues of identity and race. Rūrangi crucially avoids the inauthentic cisplaining of (typically Hollywood) trans stories by having cisgender characters played by trans actors and employing a gender-diverse crew behind the camera including the writer, producer and trans activist Cole Meyers.
We are casually introduced to other characters from Caz’s past: freewheeling and accepting best friend Anahera (a sprightly performance from Awahina Rose Ashby) who is on her own journey to connect with her Māori roots, and high school boyfriend Jem (Arlo Green) whose sweet soulfulness masks a repressed sexuality awoken by Caz’s arrival. The screenplay, co-written by Currie and Meyers, draws out warm and sympathetic performances from the cast, particularly from Carrad in his screen debut, and the tone is one of refreshingly non-judgemental levity. “Gender…it’s complicated,” says Jem in one beautifully poignant evening conversation between the ex-lovers. There is a beautifully fluid sexuality and intriguing optimism about this character, who initially recoils at the suggestion that he might be something other than straight, but finds that old passions are easily re-ignited, regardless of gender.
The narrative also flashes back to Caz’s life as a trans activist in Auckland, and a very moving public breakdown at a mental health support group, but the core of the film is Caz’s strained relationship with his father. The distance between the two generations is evident when Caz tries to explain his identity, with his father very dismissively saying “I don’t understand and I don’t care.” It becomes increasingly touching to see the delicately evolving relationship between the two men from a state of indifference, to reconciliation, and then a lovely tenderness.
There are many incidents, flashbacks, and small pockets of revelations compressed into Rūrangi‘s relatively brisk 87 minute runtime, including an environmental activism subplot, the underlying political conservatism of the town, and the spectre of prejudice that continues to afflict the Māori community. While these plot strands undeniably add to the richness of the drama, they can sometimes feel frustratingly underdeveloped or soapy, betraying the film’s roots as an episodic web-series. There are moments however, when the cinematography departs from its modest, small-screen roots, capturing the still lyrical poetry of small town life with its dappled skies, wide fields, convenience stores and diners. The closing scene ends with a triumphant, rousing affirmation of trans identity, but you leave with a feeling of wanting to spend more time in the company of these vividly sketched characters, which bodes well for the second series which has just been confirmed to be in development. This is a trans story that doesn’t look away from its difficult subject matter, but approaches it with a candour and lightness that is life-affirming and worth celebrating.
