Movie Review: 'I Wish You All the Best'

A queer coming-of-age movie remembers being 17 is chaos no matter who you are.

It’s taken decades, but queer cinema is finally starting to mature in a more widespread and reliable manner. For ages we had to put up with being portrayed as psychos or suicidal self-hating rejects; then it seemed like every other queer film was about a rent boy. At the same time, the AIDS crisis widened the genre’s field of vision somewhat and deepened its stakes and impact with some uncomfortable notes of realism. (Full-body protection while visiting your hospitalized lover? It’s an unforgettable moment in Longtime Companion.)

(Photo: Cole Sprouse, Corey Fogelmanis, and Alexandra Daddario in I Wish You All the Best. Lionsgate)

More recently we’ve started seeing films that tackle the hideous lie that queer people are somehow emotionally deformed, with “conversion therapy” films that run a rainbow gamut all their own: But I’m A Cheerleader made merry mockery of an eminently mockable sham, Boy Erased dove into the angst of it all, and even Latter Days took a painful side-trip into an industry built on selling shame and promising fairy dust outcomes. But even before films parodying the trauma porn genre arrived (like the half-horror/half-camp hootfest that is They/Them), we were starting to see movies that reflected a more recognizable take on the queer coming-of-age genre. Love, Simon and Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party weren’t perfect, but they felt more more widely relatable; what’s the big deal about being queer, anyway?

These days, that’s a more loaded question than it used to be, and here we are again in a kind of forever culture war with kids being demonized if they are transgender and LGTBQ+ progress generally backsliding. But that’s only real life. In the movies, confident queer kids are still enjoying their moment in the sun. Only, the drama has to come from somewhere, and if it’s not being outcast and rejected by society, then what?

Sadly… and all too realistically… it still comes from parents whose love for their children is conditional, predicated on them being straight and cisgender. That’s the case in writer-director Tommy Dorfman’s feature I Wish You All the Best, which is adapted from the 2019 novel by Mason Deaver. Ben (Corey Fogelmanis), 17, has an ideal family life, with supportive parents whose love is beyond question… until it isn’t. What’s happened? Ben has announced that they are non-binary, a concept that, for two highly religious people, sounds like another way of coming out as gay. Whatever: The end result is that Ben finds themself without home or family, except for a sister who left the nest ten years earlier and is now married and a new mother.

Hannah (Alexandra Daddario) takes in her younger sibling without question, and her husband Thomas (Cole Sprouse, looking nothing like he did as Jughead in Riverdale) is equally welcoming. Ben is soon installed in their household and attending classes at a new school, where he meets a whole new cadre of friends — none more genuine than Nathan (Miles Guttierez-Riley). But being safe isn’t the same thing as feeling safe, and Ben continues to struggle. Being non-binary makes them feel like they can’t and won’t fit in anywhere… a common enough lament for any seventeen-year-old, and that’s where much of the story’s dramatic tension comes from. Ben’s emotional damage is the result of parental betrayal, but being non-binary is akin to magnifying glass for the confusion they would be experiencing at that age anyway.

A sympathetic art teacher, Mrs. Lion (Lena Dunham), enters the picture with slightly new agey vibes and sage advice; Ben begins a job looking after older people; and Ben and Nathan start developing feelings for each other that go beyond friendship. It’s a new life, and everything should be better. Still, the fear and confusion linger, bringing depression with them, and it’s only the upcoming Art Fair that brings things into focus by revealing to Ben that art is a powerful means of healing.

A sensitive, committed performance by Fogelmanis anchors the picture, and Dorfman shows a sure hand both in the adaptation and the directing of the film. For people of my generation, who came of age in the 1980s, Call Me By Your Name felt like a cinematic banner as well as a satisfying wish fulfillment (who doesn’t want a dad as understanding and accepting as the one Michael Stuhlbarg plays in that film?). For Gen Z, who surveys indicate are the most forthright about matters of sexual orientation and gender identity, I Wish You All the Best might fill a similar niche.

I Wish You All the Best plays in theaters starting November 7.