Sam

Sam

My summary (without spoilers):

A switch and a gender bender movie all rolled into one.

Sam Wellerman (Brock Harris) is an awful man. And that’s putting it mildly. After complaining about women and marriage, he is turned into one (Natalie Knepp). With no idea how to undo the magic, or why it was cast in the first place, Sam/ Samantha must convince her best friend “Doc” (Sean Kleier) she’s Sam and navigate a man’s world as his cousin.

That’s it. That’s the plot. Sam (and the audience) wanders through these events without really knowing where we’re going or what we’re supposed to be doing. There’s no hero’s journey here. No problem to solve just a guy who wants to be himself again as soon as possible. It’s very “slice of life.”

The transformation: You know in movies when someone gets drunk at a party and wakes up with some kind of weird curse? Like Teen Wolf or Vampire In Brooklyn? Yeah…

After a bachelor party, Sam stumbles drunkenly home past “Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe” where Stacy Keach offers him tea and tries to change his mind about women having more than one purpose. This goes over about as well as you’d expect for someone like Sam so he just goes home where he drinks the tea anyway because reasons.

The next morning (afternoon?) while getting ready for work, Sam drops his drawers to take care of business only clichéd I lost my penis scream!

This movie wants so badly to be feminist but fails at every point along the way.

Within minutes of this film starting we have Sam complaining about other women in a restaurant. Between incomprehensible-to-men “girl talk”, girls crying at a movie, guys complaining about girls crying at said movie; this movie is drowning in stereotypes right out of the gate. Then we get to Sam’s job: he works for a lingerie company as a high ranking executive seriously. It’s owned by Mr. Cavalo (James McCaffrey) who is even more chauvinistic than Sam. No, let me correct that. He’s straight up rapey and implies that he sexually assaults his female employees on the daily. And how does Sam act about this?

He flirts with co-workers, puts down his secretary Margaret (Lucille Sharp), eats up every word Mr. Cavalo says and we’re still within the first five minutes of this movie! Then we get to see the Bachelor Party (with strippers!). This movie does not let up! Eventually we meet other female characters such as Cynthia (Sarah Scott) who is possibly the worst fiance ever and Lulu (Morgan Fairchild) who could have a positive impact on the film as a female executive but instead pushes the same “femininity as a weapon” bullshit with her inappropriate workplace interactions with Mr. Cavalo that were meant to be funny but come off cringeworthy.

This was all in the first half-hour or so.

But there are moments when it tries to apologize for all of this. Showing how Mr. Cavalo treats men and women differently, and Samantha calling him out on it. Other female co-workers having Samantha’s back. The idea Sam only got ahead because it was on Margaret’s shoulders. Samantha demanding equal pay. But then you get Lulu using sex as a carrot to get what she wants from Mr. Cavalo. You get Cynthia trying to buy off Samantha. God, even the token gay guy, Mr. Blondell, (Bryan Batt) the “image consultant” treats his female employees like shit. And everything he teaches Samantha is about how to use her feminine wiles to seduce men.

I wanted to write a good review, but once you see the flaws, the whole thing unravels.

Does this Movie pass the Bechdel test? Almost. For only half of one scene. Sam and Margaret talk about how good of a job she’s been doing, and how she deserves a promotion but that scene is ruined, because Margaret impulsively decides to confide in Samantha about her crush on male Sam. Doh! So close. You had one job to do, movie. You failed it.

You’d think a movie about becoming a woman would pass this easier? Nope. Sam and Cynthia talk about Doc. Sam and coworkers talk about Mr. Cavalo. Sam and Lulu never have a scene together without Mr.Cavalo.Sam and Georgette talk about Steve.This movie revolves around men.

It was pointed out to me by one of my proofreaders that the two unnamed women at the restaurant were talking about clothing colors. If you remove the “named female character” requirement, this scene would pass the test. But these two characters are so minor and unnamed passing this scene feels like cheating the point of this test.

Knepp’s Performance & Sam’s Character Arc: Natalie Knepp does a pretty good job portraying the fast talking crude Sam. It’s believable as she curses up a storm and is quick to put women down. Thankfully the character and Knepp’s performance softens as Samantha starts to accept her femininity. And boy does she have a glow-up! She’s cute at first, but stunning by the end of the movie.

I was disappointed that Switch didn’t have Amanda get a Pretty Woman esque makeover. Samantha does. Complete with montage! It’s just a shame Mr.Blondell is such a “queer-eye” caricature too. He pushes the whole “femininity is a tool to be used against men” narrative I mentioned earlier.

Sam becomes more feminine and less brusk as the film goes on. Having walked a few miles in women’s shoes, she starts standing up for her female co-workers and herself which is nice.

Sexuality: When Sam became a woman, his sex drive died. Is she an asexual person? (I won’t repeat what she said about her lack of sexual desire). No, it turns out she wants to have sex with Doc. Does that mean she’s straight now? Or is it just demi-sexual. I’m pretty sure the creators of this movie don’t even know what demisexual means so I’ll go with Occam’s razor on this one. Samatha is straight, like the writers. Hell, I could’ve even bought that Sam was always asexual given his initial lack of commitment to women but I refuse to believe the makers of this movie thought that hard.

How it ends: At midnight, she becomes a pumpkin. Well at midnight, she has a decision to make. She’s required to return to Ye Old Curiosity Shoppe where she will make her choice. But her choice has already been made for her by society/the movie/whatever you want to call it. She fell in love with Doc. And he fell in love with her. Yay cis-heteronormativity! Can’t have any gender or sexuality questioning thoughts in the audience now can we? Oh and she desires a baby like every good cis woman should /s so when she kisses Doc and asks him for a ride and goes up to the Shopkeeper you already know what’s gonna happen next right? She stays Samantha. Shocker.

Overall: On first watch I liked it thought it was better Switch (it wasn’t). Or did I just want it to be better? It’s a 2015 movie that had nearly the same premise as a 1991 movie but somehow managed to be more sexist than its predecessor . True Sam as a character grows more than Amanda does but then again Amanda never dies so there’s that . Thing is though most of the characters in this movie are unbearable. One anti-hero cool. An entire cast of insufferable characters not so good.

Sam vs. Switch? Switch had a legitimate plot find a woman who will love you and go to heaven . Sam loses its plot once she can’t find the Curio Shop to change back early in the movie . What I did like about Sam though is that Sam’s story feels more complete than Amanda’s does. Sam goes from being a misogynistic guy to a woman who isn’t afraid to stand up for other women. Amanda on the other hand accidentally gets pregnant and that’s her whole deal. She doesn’t really change all that much.

At least Amanda tried being a lesbian for like half a second though right? I appreciate that Doc tries to explain that Sam is demi-sexual (my interpretation). The settings are almost identical big city; Sam & Amanda both execs with female-focused branding; they’re women in a man’s industry. It is important to note though that this was made two years before #MeToo so these creepy male caricatures are still central characters. And they’re proud of it! If this movie had been made only three years later I bet it would’ve avoided some of those tropes and could’ve been better or it wouldn’t have been made at all. All I wanted was Lulu to be a positive feminine role model for Sam damnit!

Mainstream TF/TG authors typically employ their stories as a gendered variation of “The Battle of the Sexes.” That’s how they structure their films. Always comparing stereotypes for laughs, never about tearing down walls and looking within. Never diving into true masculinity and femininity. It’s like every mainstream TF/TG author wants to be Woody Allen. I’m still waiting for that one elusive TF/TG movie which tells a real transgender story and avoids all the tropes these others always fall into.

Should you? Watch it with me. Watch it so we can find better movies. But don’t expect any awards to be won by this film.

Watch Sam For Free On Gomovies.