Lindy is 16, has a boyfriend, and really wants to sleep with him. So far, so good, until she learns, from a doctor, that nothing is going to go exactly as planned. This is because she has a particular syndrome, was born without a uterus, and has the added bonus of an atrophied vagina.
Raw subject, you say? Certainly, but true subject. It is because this “nightmare”, staged in My life my rules (Fitting In), a Canadian feature film by Molly McGlynn, with actress and dancer Maddie Ziegler in the lead role, is in fact inspired by a true story: that of the director.
Shout from the rooftops
You read that right: Molly McGlynn also learned as a teenager that she was born with MRKH (Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser) syndrome. Basically: that the reason she didn’t have her period yet, and in fact never would, was because she didn’t have a uterus. She could therefore never bear a child. Oh yes, and, incidentally, if she wanted to have penetrative sex, she would have to personally dilate her vagina. How ? Using a series of small, colorful dildos.
« C’est inspiré de mon cauchemar personnel », répète la réalisatrice (remarquée au Festival international du film de Toronto en 2017 pour Mary Goes Round), rencontrée virtuellement. « Il n’y a pas de mystère ici, pas de mystère du tout ! » Après avoir longtemps voulu cacher à la planète entière sa réalité toute particulière (le syndrome touche d’après les estimations environ une femme sur 4500), la voilà qui le crie sur tous les toits, dans toutes les entrevues, et prochainement toutes les salles de cinéma (après un détour par plusieurs festivals).
Pourquoi, au juste ? « Ça me faisait toute la peur du monde, dit-elle, mais j’ai réalisé qu’en tant que réalisatrice, j’avais l’occasion de raconter une histoire qui n’a jamais été racontée avant. »
Et si moi, je ne faisais pas ce film, qui le ferait ?
Molly McGlynn, réalisatrice
Si elle a longtemps eu peur que son nom soit automatiquement associé à sa condition, que ses interlocuteurs devinent de facto tous les détails de son anatomie, tant pis. Aujourd’hui, elle en sort grandie, empowered, comme elle dit. « C’est finalement un cadeau, un privilège, un honneur de pouvoir faire ce film », indique Molly McGlynn, en remerciant ses producteurs d’avoir embarqué dans l’audacieux projet.
Parlant d’audace, la critique du Globe & Mail qualifie Fitting In de plus « audacieux [riskiest] film never produced in the country. “I’m flattered,” reacts the director. I think that in general, in Canada, we are making more and more daring films. »
A “traumamedia”
And it was necessary to dare, precisely, to tell such an intimate story, with suggestive scenes, although never gratuitous. Never erotic either, because there is nothing erotic in trying to coldly expand one’s insides, it should be noted. And the director does not hesitate to insist. “It’s not erotic,” she repeats. This is a teen movie, after all, and frankly still within the bounds of good taste.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY PRODUCTION
Molly McGlynn, director
Molly McGlynn qualifies for this purpose My life my rules of “traumadia”, mixing the traumas of her adolescence with a humor that she says is “black” and deliberately offbeat. “There’s a lot of absurdity,” she says, “like getting a box of medical dildos from your doctor… it’s horrifying!” »
This famous scene, as supernatural as it is, is also one of the truest in the film, modeled on the director’s past. Also close to her reality: the extremely emotional relationship with the mother, tense and tender at the same time, she says.
The furthest? Without giving anything away, the finale, and Lindy’s heartfelt monologue on acceptance and diversity, thrown like a monumental middle finger to the ambient (stifling?) heteronormativity. “That’s what is furthest from my reality in the film. This is me, at 38, and what I would say to all these little idiots [shit heads], if I went back to my high school! “, she said, congratulating the courage of Maddie Ziegler, “icon of Generation Z”, in playing this delicate role.
PHOTO GERRY KINGSLEY, PROVIDED BY ENTRACT
Emily Hampshire and Maddie Ziegler are mother and daughter in Fitting In.
Note that if she refuses to talk about it for a long time, both to her mother and to her best friend, Lindy will end up confiding in a non-binary and intersex character, Jax, played here by Ki Griffin, also intersex in life.
It was important to have someone intersex in the cast.
Molly McGlynn, director
“He’s a joyful character who allows us to have a conversation around intersexuality, and how it does or does not overlap with MRKH syndrome. I ask questions, I don’t give answers,” she adds.
We guessed it, My life my rules finally and head-on challenges the so-called “normality”, by presenting this undoubtedly lesser known aspect of diversity. “Normal is a very dangerous construct,” comments Molly McGlynn. Everyone who has a body has already worried: am I different, but different in relation to what, and what is a difference? […] For years, I talked about a reproductive disorder. But it’s not a problem! It’s a state! »
Let it be said, she said: “No one is a problem to be fixed. […] And then beyond all these serious subjects, my film mostly tells a pleasant story, and just like its theme, it’s not what you think, she says. So go see it with an open mind! »
In theaters February 2