At 16, Lindy still hasn’t had her period. No one knows except his mother, Rita. Worried, the latter takes her daughter to a gynecologist. At the end of a painful examination, Lindy learns that she has a rare condition: Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, or Müller agenesis, or a partial absence of the vagina and uterus. Shaken, Lindy keeps the secret for a while, but ultimately decides to attend meetings with a support group. With the aptly named Fitting In (My life my rules), Molly McGlynn makes a funny, enlightening and also angry film, based on her own experiences.
Funny, first of all, because the Canadian screenwriter and director injects a good dose of humor into her treatment. This is particularly the case during the exchanges between Lindy (Maddie Ziegler) and her mother (Emily Hampshire), who, with the best intentions in the world, sometimes says or does too much.
These comic outbursts, however, have a double function. Indeed, if they lighten the atmosphere during certain passages, they make other moments even more destabilizing, through a play of contrasts. We especially think of the gynecological examinations, where the discomfort and pain felt by Lindy are ignored to the point of absurdity by a predominantly male medical profession.
Shaken, Lindy doesn’t even have time to come to terms with her new reality as her doctor orders her to use a battery of vaginal dilators of increasing sizes.
This is one of the main themes of Molly McGlynn’s film: gynecological medicine intended for women, but designed by men. Moreover, the fact that Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, which specifically affects women, is named in honor of four men is duly mocked in the film.
The penis first
From one visit to another, from one speech to another, it’s a bit as if Lindy was being dispossessed of a part of herself under the pretext that her genitals do not correspond to the norm. The automatic prescription of said dilators is also symptomatic of a bias that is not only heteronormative, but once again aimed at accommodating men: this is another theme of the film.
In fact, the message immediately sent to Lindy with these dilators is roughly the following: what is important is to be able to accommodate a penis without too much difficulty.
But, precisely, Lindy is not there, since she asks herself a thousand questions about her sexuality. Especially since meeting Jax, who is non-binary and intersex (Ki Griffin).
Even amid the drama, Molly McGlynn remains resolutely positive. Also the eventful initiatory journey of its heroine turns out, in the end, to be quite luminous. We will certainly regret a slow pace and a sometimes uneven interpretation in the secondary roles, but the subject and the tone are compelling. What’s more, in the role of Lindy, Maddie Ziegler is absolutely sensational. A film to watch to laugh, learn and be moved.