Transgender Nation

This is literally essentially an old guy googling "transgender" and reading the WikiPedia page for the word. Not a movie.

The other review mentions this is "an old guy reading Wikipedia" which is totally inaccurate--Mr. Gardiner is comfortably middle-aged, he's just British and as a result perhaps sounds more distinguished.

And yet, this other review still contains a kernel of truth--the film is a little more of an opinion editorial in long-term than what you may consider the standard "documentary." There is one speaker, there are no interviews and the production has a certain ambient quality to it. The music is light and minimally engaging, it does not change much throughout the film and the narrator does not swell with emotion to captivate his audience.

As a result, this film will be somewhere between "calming" and "boring" depending upon your tastes. Oddly enough, I think one could easily fall asleep to this documentary--the intention may be somewhere closer to pleasant background noise than a rollercoaster of emotion laden with hard facts and stats. That's not what Mr. Gardiner is about.

Perhaps most humorously, summarizing the film as "a guy reading Wikipedia" demonstrates that one did not adequately engage with the film--these are one man's opinions, and believe it or not there is a fairly clear message to be found if you remember 1. He is British and 2. He is a Hollywood producer. These things are relevant, but you won't get that from engaging with the movie as it seems to be intended.

If you find this film bland or boring, I would almost guarantee you did not look up at the screen very often. There is a lot going on here that is.. actually it's not subtle at all, but it may roll off of you if you mistake this for a piece of ASMR mush. Peek up or over at the screen every so often, you'll see what I mean.