Starring: Angourie Rice, Justice Smith, Debby Ryan, Jeni Ross, Lucas Jade Zumann, Katie Douglas, Ian Alexander
Director: Michael Sucsy
Country: USA
Films about LGBT+ people have long been managing to understand their assigned letter within the acronym, but how many have delved into the ambiguity of the “+”? Not many. But Every Day, a new teen coming-of-age drama that has just landed ion Netflix does exactly that.
Rhiannon (Rice) has an unpleasant boyfriend, Justin (Smith). But when, one day, he whisks her away for a romantic day out together, she doesn’t understand what has changed. Over the coming days Justin returns to the way he was before and she meets scores of new people (including The OA's trans actor Ian Alexander), all of whom are making a conscious effort to befriend and get to know her. When she starts lets on that she has noticed commonalities between them, she is told that actually they are all the same person. ‘A’ is a spirit that passes from person to person, inhabiting them for just 24 hours before moving on to the next. Having never had their own body, A has no gender or physical appearance, but Rhiannon realises that she is falling in love with them.
Initially, this is a very sweet romance about love without the labels. Because A is genderless, it’s impossible to equate them or Rhiannon with sexuality. And because Rhiannon loves them no matter what their human form, she is the embodiment of pansexuality. But, of course, things start to become very complicated very quickly, because how can you sustain a relationship with someone when you don’t know what body they’re going to wake up in the next day? The sci-fi element is pretty hard to overcome, even for the most born romantic.
Stylistically, this high-gloss teen fantasy is nothing groundbreaking, but it’s refreshing to see a movie about an issue as narratively complex as this that doesn’t get itself tied in knots about it. Rhiannon could care less that she doesn’t know A’s gender. In fact, gender and sexuality are only mentioned once, being given minimal screen-time in favour of focusing more on their feelings for each other. It’s very 2019, very Generation Z and very refreshing.
OUT NOW ON NETFLIX.