Blue Sunshine

The feature debut from writer-director Samyuktha Vijayan, Blue Sunshine is a tender and poignant drama that centres around transgender teacher Bhanu (Vijayan). She’s been taking hormone medication for six months while hiding her identity from her colleagues and conservative family. But when her father proposes an arranged marriage, Bhanu is encouraged to embrace her new identity. Although she has support from some close friends, the teacher faces adversity at every turn, with things only becoming more difficult when she stands up for a non-binary student (Masanth Natarajan).

Much of this film’s strength lies in Vijayan’s sobering performance. The actor conveys a lot of complicated emotions with minimal dialogue. Whether she’s politely nodding along to discriminatory language or finding joy in the act of buying women’s shoes, the filmmaker gives viewers a personal insight into their transgender experience.

While the plot revolves around Bhanu coming out publicly as transgender, the feature is more about the various forms of prejudice trans people face in conservative Indian communities. Alongside being ostracised by their family, she likewise comes up against a myriad of issues that make her process unnecessarily difficult.  The school’s HR department is more concerned about exploiting her to gain positive publicity from the press than helping her. Vijayan uses their film to touch upon a range of important areas of discussion. While the delivery of some of these talking points is more on-the-nose than others, there’s nevertheless a heartfelt message to be found at the core of this moving drama.

However, not everything is handled as well when it comes to the narrative, particularly the subplot surrounding the non-binary student. While this story beat is useful for widening the discussion of identity to encompass more genders, this plotline doesn’t come into play until much later in the film. Had this character’s experience and relationship with Bhanu taken a more prominent role in shaping the plot, then it may have had a bigger impact on the drama. As it stands, this component feels more like an afterthought than an integral part of the script.

Led by a wonderfully stripped-back performance by Vijayan, Blue Sunshine is a touching drama that shines a light on transgender issues. Even though the plot is a tad rough around the edges, the filmmaker delivers a triumphant feature debut.

Andrew Murray

Blue Sunshine does not have a UK release date yet.

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