Chrissy Judy (Review) - BFI Flare 2023

Chrissy Judy is awaiting a UK release date and will be released in selected US cinemas on March 31 and on digital and DVD on April 11.

Singer-songwriter Andrew Gold famously wrote: Thank you for being a friend, Traveled down a road and back again, Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant. These famous lyrics would become synonymous with The Golden Girls, a show I would watch religiously with my dearly departed Nan. But what do these lyrics mean? They talk of the importance of friends who walk with you throughout your life, friends who may not always be right next to you but are always just a phone call or text away. They also speak of the importance of honesty in maintaining a friendship.

Many people confuse friendship with their need for a relationship. As a result, many of us have had friends who meet someone and suddenly disappear off the radar, leaving behind the very people or persons that offered support and love free from the trappings of sex. Others seem to believe that friendship is a one-way street, where the effort to stay in contact lies with others, not them. For LGBTQIA+ people, friendships within our community are essential, urgent and important; after all, we make up a tiny percentage of the population, and our straight friends often drift away as soon as they meet a partner and rarely give any thought to the struggles a minority group such as ours may face.

Our LGBTQIA+ friends form a surrogate family unit that can keep us safe, happy and supported throughout our lives, whether we meet someone or choose a single life. But that doesn’t mean these friendships don’t change over time or morph into something new as we age. Director Todd Flaherty’s delightful low-budget drama Chrissy Judy is about the transitions these friendships face as we grow and the grief we experience when our friends choose to leave our side.

Chrissy (Wyatt Fenner) and Judy (Todd Flaherty) have been best friends since their teens. They are inseparable, a dynamic drag duo on the New York scene who always come as a pair. No man can come between them, and no group can divide them, or so Judy thought. But Chrissy recently met a man who lives in Philadelphia and soon announces that he feels ready for a change of pace and scene in Philly with his partner. For Judy, this announcement is a dagger to the heart, for he isn’t ready to give up the New York scene or say goodbye to his friend. As summer turns to autumn and winter, Chrissy and Judy separate, one building a new life in Philidelphia and the other attempting to find a new purpose and new friends in the Big Apple.

Shot in black and white, Chrissy Judy is a love letter to the importance and fragility of friendship. Visually there are nods to Woody Allen‘s early work, while the screenplay echoes Noah Baumbach’s ability to unpick relationships before stitching them back together. Meanwhile, the humour that ripples through the drama is sharp and reflective of the communities we call home in cities that can be enticing, exciting and devastatingly lonely in equal measure. By mixing the cabaret traditions of drag with a far more contemporary exploration of a changing gay scene, Flaherty captures a moment in time that comes to us all, a moment where the gay scene we once called home seems to suddenly slip through our fingers and into the hands of a new generation. But Flaherty doesn’t view this as a negative but an opportunity for rebirth as we find a new tribe and start writing a new chapter.

Also fascinating are the discussions that ebb and flow under the surface of Chrissy Judy around the pressures to conform to a heterosexual model of life in a world that continues to view those who challenge these norms as weird, bizarre or eccentric. Judy doesn’t want to settle down and have a neat little house on a suburban street with a husband, two kids and a dog, and why should he? These themes play into a broader discussion on our heteronormative world and the pressure to conform to a ‘new gay’ image built on marriage, kids and suburban houses with white picket fences. I am not about to get into those debates here, but Flaherty places those questions front and centre as he asks us to reflect on why we leave behind so many friendships when we meet a new partner.

Brave, bold and beautiful, Chrissy Judy is a unique exploration of the queer friendships we hold dear. It is genuine, tender, and at times, deeply emotional as it explores the friendships that offer us hope and meaning and the moments these friendships change. It is a shimmering jewel in a treasure chest of indie LGBTQIA+ movies and deserves a whole lot of love.