A Kid Like Jake

A Kid Like Jake

The movie titled “A Kid Like Jake” touches the topic of gender dysphoria in a sensitive way.

It makes their family’s confusion grow out of a familiar, contemporary world one that could conceivably render this difficult subject matter relatable, or at least accessible, to audiences who might never have had cause to consider it before. If anything, its very simplicity and purity spring from the fact that the central figure is a 4-year old about to start kindergarten: Here is someone who only wants to be seen and loved for who he really is, which he communicates in the most essentially human terms possible.

Director Silas Howard and writer Daniel Pearle (adapting his own play) depict the routine of daily life for this Brooklyn family in understated scenes that range from bath time to packing up the lunchbox. But they handle so much of the meatier material with such decency and honesty that you wish they’d gone deeper emotionally, allowing us to know Jake better for ourselves.

At preschool, Jake (Leo James Davis) seems perfectly content wearing tutus and playing Cinderella in the dress-up corner. This is a kid who has every Disney princess on DVD and wants to go as Rapunzel for Halloween. His mother Alex (Claire Danes), who put her career as a lawyer on hold to be a stay-at-home mom, assumes it must be some kind of phase; she doesn’t think there’s any cause for concern.

But his father Greg (Jim Parsons, also one of the film’s producers) happens to be a therapist. And as reports from school principal Judy (Octavia Spencer) about Jake’s outbursts and stubbornness become more frequent, Greg believes seeing a psychologist may provide some guidance.

Alex and Greg have thrust themselves into the fraught process of applying for private schools just as quietly simmering anxieties come to full boil. “A Kid Like Jake” vividly captures this most bougie of ordeals: the campus tours where all the couples look alike and radiate the same thrum of anxiety, the cutthroat competition, the naked striving. It should be easy but it’s not especially in a place like Park Slope, Spencer wryly suggests as Judy.

They should use their child’s difference as a strategy to stand out from the rest of the pack, she suggests with her trademark warmth and wisdom. Mom and dad want somewhere that’s flexible and forward-thinking for their child to end up. And yet there stands Jake at his first interview, every bit the proper little man in a blazer, button-down shirt and tie.

“A Kid Like Jake” shrewdly approaches this child’s present state from a number of angles, not all of which are sympathetic. Friends and family members mean well or at least tell themselves they mean well but can say something inadvertently dismissive or demeaning. The always welcome Ann Dowd plays Alex’s judgey passive aggressive mother; she tends to try to impose her will on everybody all the time, but eventually shows some unexpected complexity. And Priyanka Chopra may not be as trustworthy as Alex initially thought she was when she becomes friends with Isabel (Amelia Fowler), one of Jake’s schoolmates’ moms. People are fallible.

However, as Jake’s parents Danes and Parsons share an easy chemistry together that never fails to engage. At the beginning of the movie they have a light hearted banter with each other which quickly turns into more prickly exchanges as the plot thickens. They may be super-liberal and LGBTQ-friendly but they don’t always treat each other well when it comes to their own child this is an authentic result of their growing pressure.

I can’t describe how terrible it was watching them fight at the end where finally everything came out; every single one of those things said during this fight was hurtful. But what got us all was that it was so real, so painful, so truthful because these were words that needed saying.

We learn a lot about these characters, how their marriage shifts over time but not much about Jake himself. He exists as an idea talked about, pulled apart and argued over but he appears visually through fleeting images in soft light. There is also a subplot involving Greg & one of his therapy patients (Amy Landecker) who is going through her own marriage problems it’s good acting but feels like a tangent.

Still “A Kid Like Jake” could really change some people or help them see things differently at least.

Watch A Kid Like Jake For Free On Gomovies.