Reflective Encounters

“As protagonist filmmaker Jude Dry tries to come to terms with their gender identity and their mother Cecilia’s acceptance of it, director Jude Dry attempts to make a film that makes sense of it all. While it’s meant to be a fictional account of the mother-child relationship, reality keeps seeping through as they negotiate their fractured relationship through the prism of a making a film.

It’s the constant breaks in the film that makes Monsieur Le Butch so funny, reality consistently intruding on the comfort of fiction. As Jude gently chastises Cecilia for writing herself a long monologue or not learning the script, the dynamic between the two becomes apparent as we begin to wonder which scenes are a set-up and which are real.

But it never feels like a deliberately tricksy or gimmicky piece of work. As fun as the constant flitting between documentary and fiction is, there also a sense of the profound here as Jude and Cecilia work through their complex issues. With a commendable intimacy and sense of adventure, the film is a touching account of trying to move forward.”

— Laurence Boyce