London Film Festival 2025 – She’s The He ★★★★★

Released: TBC (London Film Festival)

Director: Siobhan McCarthy

Starring: Nico Carney, Suzanne Cryer, Misha Osherovich

Although the BFI has its dedicated festival for queer cinema in ‘Flare’, it’s always great when their flagship festival LFF has some LGBTQIA+ inclusions. With Pillion, The History of Sound, Christy and 100 Nights of Hero bagging an elusive gala slot being celebrated in the festival’s biggest location it feels as though the BFI are taking a step in the right direction. But beyond the glitz and glamour of the red carpet some queer indie films also made their debut. One such film was She’s The He, an unapologetically queer gender-swap comedy that is filled to the brim with humour and heart.

Alex (Nico Carney) and Ethan (Misha Osherovich) are in their final year of high school, and both live on the social edges with each other. Alex has a crush on the popular girl Sasha, and he comes up with a harebrained plan to get him and Ethan into the girls’ locker room. To get inside he suggests that he and Ethan should pretend to be transgender. Ethan is initially apprehensive about the plan but follows along with it for his friend. In any other hands She’s The He would feel rather derivative, and potentially offensive, but Siobhan McCarthy leads a group of artistically talented queer people whose experience completely informs not only the humour but the emotionally driven moments as well.   

She’s The He is darkly humorous, with close to the bone jokes that sometimes step across the line. The absurdity fits into its teen coming-of-age trappings as it is clear the teenage characters aren’t quite thinking before they speak, which produces some hilarious results.

Despite the schlocky vibes She’s The He has an incredibly strong emotional core, specifically in the main character of Ethan. What starts off as pretending for them becomes something more complicated as they start to feel affirmed when presenting as a girl. Through this whistle-stop tour of femininity, Ethan is exposed to feelings they’ve long since buried because of the duty they feel they have to their mother in being the man of the house. These feelings fully burst out in a pivotal scene towards the end where Ethan comes out to her mother. It is such a beautifully acted scene by both Misha Osherovich and Suzanne Cryer, adding the perfect amount of realism to the sea of over stylised moments.   

She’s The He takes so much inspiration from the films that came before it. It plays out as if it’s a high schooler writing the events of the film into their diary. It has a frenetic energy as it cuts between the action, sometimes with a split screen to get two character’s reactions on screen at once. Comic book-style animations flutter across the screen contributing to the whimsical diary-based vibes.

Stereotypes are a mainstay of the high school coming-of-age genre, and the way that She’s The He plays with them is fabulous. You have all the characters you’d expect here, the jocks, popular girls, social outcasts, the token gay character, teachers whose personality you can’t quite put your finger on, and overprotective parents. Rather than conforming to these they are challenged at many points. The jocks’, who in a stroke of genius are all played by trans men, masculinity is questioned, Davis (Mark Indelicato) exists as a gay man in this film completely independently and happy with his sexuality, and interestingly there is tension between Ethan and her mother after they’ve come out rather than immediately painting the moment with a positive brush. She’s The He’s exploration of queer identity in this way sets it as an iconic piece of queer cinema.

She’s The He is a hilarious and frank look at a plethora of LGBTQ+ experiences. Its biting jokes mixed with a heaped serving of queer joy and heart make it a must watch for anyone, not just people within the community. Today more than ever we need films that celebrate and represent queerness on all of its messy levels, and She’s The He delivers this and more.