Thanks to shows like Orange is the New Black and Pose, trans women–particularly those of color–have perhaps never been such a prominent part of culture. However, at the same time, every year seems to break the record for deadly violence against trans people. Given that, it’s staggering to imagine what it must feel like to live in the midst of that dichotomy. The new film, The Garden Left Behind, which screened at Outfest earlier this month, captures that everyday experience.
Written by John Rotondo and Flavio Alves and directed by the latter, the film follows Tina (Carlie Guevara), a trans woman who immigrated illegally to America at age 5 and now lives in Queens with her grandmother. She also drives a town car to make money, is having an affair with a married man and regularly hangs out with a group of friends who are also trans women. When we meet her, Tina is frustrated that her psychiatrist (played by Ed Asner) still hasn’t approved her to begin hormone therapy and indeed, much of the film’s narrative thrust comes from Tina’s struggle not just to transition, but to do so in a world so hostile to her.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Garden Left Behind is the way it conveys that hostility with subtlety and realism. When Tina complains to her friends that the psychiatrist keeps saying they’re “on the same team,” the audience easily recognizes the condescension of that statement when he says it a few scenes later. When she and her boyfriend are heckled by a group of macho neighborhood boys while out on a date, we hold our breaths as they quickly walk away with their eyes down. When she has to get a fake ID so she can get a job that will pay for her transition without insurance, we understand just how much she has to work just to become who she already is. Each element adds to the film’s realism and that fidelity makes it that much easier to sympathize with and understand what Tina faces.
That said, the film’s best moments concern Tina’s relationship with her grandmother, Eliana (Miriam Cruz). For the most part, that relationship is loving: Eliana constantly expresses her affection for Tina and doesn’t so much disapprove of Tina’s boyfriend as not like his sneaking around. Rather, her disapproval is far more passive in that she constantly talks of separating Tina from her life by returning to the idyllic Mexico she remembers and exclusively calls Tina by her deadname. It’s a passive aggression, but one that many trans people will likely find painfully familiar and acts as a potent expression of the damage even loving family members can unwittingly do.
Perhaps the film’s best scene comes when, during Tina’s birthday party, Eliana pulls aside her friend, Amanda (Ivana Black), and asks why her grandchild would want to transition in the first place. With patience and sympathy, Amanda explains that the question Eliana should be a skin isn’t “why?” but is Tina happy? It’s a smart, moving scene that’s only made more meaningful through the actress’s grounded and naturalistic performances and makes what happens between Eliana and Tina later all the more impactful.
Still, good and necessary as that scene is, it’s easy to lose it in a film stuffed with so many plot threads. Though Tina’s transition is the main thrust of the film’s plot, it’s hardly the only story at work here. There’s also her attempt to sell her car, the protests she organizes with her friends after another trans woman is beaten by cops and a beautiful boy who works behind the counter at a bodega Tina frequents who can’t seem to stop thinking about her. Though nearly all of those threads factor into the film’s climax, until hen, the storytelling can feel–if not directionless–a little meandering. And while that seeming lack of focus would be a far more serious flaw in most films, here, that gentle pacing also serves to make the film’s climax that much more shocking.
It would be unfair to spoil exactly what happens to Tina, but it’s both unexpected in the details and totally expected for anyone aware of the statistics. Though some elements of that ending will perhaps read to some as emotionally manipulative, it also feels brutally, inescapably true. The Garden Left Behind is perhaps not a perfect film, but it is one that paints a starkly realistic view of what it means to be trans in this country in this moment in history. Even if not every element is as strong as it could be, its power is still undeniable.
