“What the hell! My brain’s going to explode! You’ve cheated me! Out! Get out of here!” Manu shouts 40 minutes into the movie, after Manvi tells him she’s trans.

Manvi is trying to explain how she struggled by not being herself for 20 years, but Manu can’t register any of it.

The self-harm scars on Manvi’s wrist that Manu’s thumb had just brushed over are erased from his mind. Manvi’s courage to leave home, to get gender-affirming surgery, her vulnerability in sharing her pre-transition photos and deadname, the stories she doesn’t owe him but is still offering are all disregarded.

Two seconds before, Manu was proposing to her. Now, he threatens to destroy Manvi’s life and makes himself throw up in a scalding hot shower where he aggressively scrubs his body, leaving red marks all across.

Here’s what I can’t digest: What was the purpose of this shower scene?

If a movie is grappling to address the transmisogynistic dehumanization of gender nonconforming and trans folks, it has a responsibility to deliver it. But the violence of this reaction to Manvi’s identity is mostly left suspended.

Continued in Part 4: https://bit.ly/3K6cX6y