USA, — The fold-out chairs used by Will Ferrell and his friend of nearly three decades, Harper Steele, over the course of 3,000 miles grace many a glorious locale: Sun-draped beaches, misty woodlands, the edges of golden canyons. They’re the right kind of mind-clearing, soul-expanding places for these two to hold the conversations that drive the revelatory documentary “Will & Harper,” conceived in the wake of Steele’s transition into a woman and Ferrell’s idea that they drive across America to discover what it means for her, for him and for how they navigate a country struggling in certain pockets to navigate transgender issues.
But it’s the very first place where they pop a squat and crack open a cold one – a not-so-luxurious Walmart lot – that speaks to the movie’s evolution while reflecting a national dialogue. If “Will & Harper” opens with a touch of unavoidable performativity as the duo skims the surface of their new relationship while an amused audience takes in their pit stop in the glow of a neon Walmart sign, it only makes it easier to invest in and be touched by the organic ways their bond will develop from here. Between this concrete rendezvous and the oceans of California, Ferrell and Steele will embark on a journey that reminds us about beauty found in the familiar while showing, in moments of piercing humanity, that the dividends of allyship flow both ways.
Both a genuinely moving portrait of friendship and a graceful allegory for post-pandemic reemergence, “Will & Harper” smartly uses the cozy format of a road-trip movie to fuel its very modern conversations about identity, recognition and adjustment. That it transposes its exploration of trans identity through a channel as traditionally Americana as a cruise from sea to shining sea – in a crappy car, no less – certainly feels artistically significant, like reclaiming standard overhead shots of highway journeys for a community that hasn’t always had the luxury of such visibility. There’s mercifully little deployment of the traditional talking-head documentary setup here, and it’s used to get us up to speed on the central dynamic between Will Ferrell, certified A-lister, and Harper Steele, the former writer at SNL where they met in the ‘90s. Harper Steele was Andrew Steele at that point, and when she writes to Ferrell about her transition during COVID times, it’s he who comes up with the idea to set out on the road to explore what it means for them.
As silly as Ferrell has been in some of the biggest American comedies of the last 25 years, it turns out there’s some versatility to his affability. In “Will & Harper,” he’s good-natured without having to surrender the antic persona he made a career on, making it easy to sink into this friendship as it enters a new stage, one whose revelations even Steele doesn’t entirely expect. The road trip turns out to be as multidimensional as the transgender issue itself without knocking astray the documentary’s eponymous fulcrum. Ferrell has questions; Steele has questions about Ferrell’s questions. And out of that candid dialogue – about how Harper chose her name, about what she’s written in her journals, about what it was like to get breasts – blooms intimacy that proves to be an essential counterweight when they confront discrimination that’s comfortable rearing its head at a distance, whether that’s through politics and social media.
“Will & Harper” is political in spurts, but it’s the personal of it all that makes it feel universal. When the pair go to an Indiana Pacers game and chat with the governor only to learn of his opposition to trans care, it brings things into crushing focus, Ferrell breaking down over what he perceives as inaction while Steele reflects on what she could’ve expected from him in that moment. It’s easy to imagine similar discussions happening across the country, and easy also to sympathize with trans Americans who don’t have the same kind of support that we see Ferrell lift Harper up on. It almost makes you forgive the dearth of treacly music that accompanies our companions, and the occasional ways the movie limps into a more forced structure.
The doc’s strength comes from director Josh Greenbaum following these conversations and interactions in real time instead of piecing the journey together retroactively through the rear-view mirror. By giving the conversations such immediacy, allows him to trace the evolution of their dialogue with a lightness and good-natured inquisitiveness that’s crucial to the subject matter, but sensitive to the friends we’re following and the unexpected detours their trip will take. But Greenbaum, who previously directed “Strays” and “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” also equips his comedy bona fides to make the most of some genuinely hilarious touches, like when Ferrell and Steele gaze solemnly across the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool only to find it’s been reduced to a puddle.
Ferrell has long been pop culture’s kooky uncle that moviegoers can’t help but love, and he makes it all accessible. The questions we have about what Steele is going through feel appropriate coming through his mouth, and some of the most potent moments come when we see this uncompromisingly confident performer is just as susceptible as the rest of us to doubt and self-interrogation. But it also never emphasizes Ferrell’s education over Steele’s self-determination, which does occasionally find itself shaken. “I’m afraid of hating myself,” she says at one point, and the words sting in part because “Will & Harper” doesn’t overexert itself to soften them.
"Will & Harper" is now streaming on Netflix. It's rated R for language. Runtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes.
Starring Will Ferrell, Harper Steele
Directed by Josh Greenbaum
2024
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