The Big Picture

Will & Harper is an accessible and important documentary that candidly shows the challenges and joys of a transgender woman’s experience. The film combines humor and emotion and has the potential to change lives by inspiring more people to be allies to the trans community. Will Ferrell leverages his popularity and platform to support his friend and educate people about a community close to his heart.

The celebrity documentary is not a new genre by any stretch of the imagination. In the past few years alone, we’ve gotten a look into the lives of Brooke Shields, Pamela Anderson, Michael J. Fox, Sylvester Stallone, David Beckham, Selena Gomez, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many more. But I can assure you that you’ve never seen one quite like Will Ferrell’s.

How? Let me count the ways. For one, it’s not really about Will Ferrell at all — rather, the spotlight is put on his long-time friend Harper Steele, who recently came out as a transgender woman. The film is a love letter to their unchanging friendship just as Harper herself is going through a lot of new things. The film smartly focuses on a couple-week period as they go on a road trip across America shortly after her transition, with us getting the history of their relationship through a combination of occasional archival footage and the two of them reminiscing about the past.

Will & Harper In this intimate portrayal of friendship, transition, and America, Will Ferrell and his best buddy of thirty years decide to go on a cross-country road trip to explore this new chapter in their relationship. Release Date January 22, 2024

What is ‘Will & Harper’ About?
It all started with Saturday Night Live. Harper was the head writer for the show and saw special potential in Will, while many thought he was a dud. Harper advocated for Will back then, and now, Will gets to return the favor by supporting Harper when much of the world is against her simply for being trans. Due to their Saturday Night Live roots, we get some cameos from former co-stars, including Kristen Wiig, Molly Shannon, Tina Fey, and Tim Meadows. While they’re always a delight, and I don’t doubt their genuine friendship with Harper, it can feel slightly gimmicky and detract from the intimacy and focus on the titular two.

Their history with Saturday Night Live quickly makes it clear there will be humor, too. We, as an audience, are blessed to be privy to Will and Harper’s inside jokes, many of which revolve around food, from cheap beer to spicy Pringles to Dunkin’ Donuts. The two of them speak the same humorous language, further demonstrating how authentic and sweet this friendship is. The documentary also proves there are even ways to make trans jokes without being offensive or tearing the community down (take notes, Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais), like when Will asks Harper if she’s taken her new rack to Nordstrom Rack or when Harper claims that she’s still the same person but instead of being called an asshole, people will call her a bitch.

‘Will & Harper’ Explores Unique Challenges but Is Universally Relatable

On paper, Will & Harper is about as unrelatable as you can get. It features an A-list celebrity and a transgender person — neither of which many Americans know. According to a 2022 study, fewer than one in three adults personally know a transgender person. I couldn’t find a statistic regarding how many people know a famous person, but I imagine the numbers are even lower.

And yet, Will & Harper is deeply relatable. Even if you’re cisgender, it’s easy to relate to the feelings Harper expresses — loneliness, insecurity, and wanting to be loved for exactly who she is. But it’s not all doom and gloom. There are stunning moments of joy we can connect to as well, like when Harper recalls her “whole body feeling warm” when she first said her new name aloud. While cisgender people may not understand the exact circumstance, we’ve all hopefully felt confident and seen before — euphoric from unlocking a new part of ourselves and being accepted. Trans people are often reduced to their bodies, which is a shame, as the trans experience is about much more than surgery and dysphoria. It’s about who you are on the inside. Trans people are just that: people. Ones with complex emotions and feelings and hopes and dreams — not a miserable monolith. Will & Harper thankfully lets us explore all those positive facets of Harper, too.

Will Ferrell acts as a stand-in for the film’s cisgender viewers, and it’s clear he’s not always comfortable with that role. “So many of us don’t know what the rules of engagement are,” he admits. This new dynamic with Harper is uncharted waters for him, and it can be scary to dive in. He loves her, but he has questions, and he doesn’t always know how to ask them. Even when Harper point-blank asks if he’s nervous, he struggles to answer honestly, with many silences and stutters. It can be hard to know how to say the right thing — and the fear of saying something offensive can be paralyzing — but this movie will hopefully put people at ease just as Harper did to Will by assuring him that, as long as you have good intentions, it’s okay to not know all the answers or get everything right all the time. All you have to do is try your best.

Will not only becomes more relaxed about asking Harper questions over time, but he also becomes more vulnerable and emotional when tough situations arise. There are a few times when Will fears that he failed Harper and must confront the guilt he has over that, like when he is friendly to a governor he doesn’t know has anti-trans politics or when a steakhouse dining experience Will recommends quickly turns sinister, with threatening looks from fellow diners and subsequent social media vitriol.

Will’s celebrity status quickly proves to be both a blessing and a curse. It can help shield Harper, defusing many potentially dangerous situations by acting as a buffer, but it can attract negative attention, too. While visibility can open hearts, it can make you a target for close-minded people as well. Fame is a fishbowl — a magnet for people’s curious eyes — and, to an extent, the trans experience can be similar, with strangers gawking and feeling they have the right to invade your privacy at every turn.

‘Will & Harper’ Is a Must-Watch — I Mean It

There are painful parts of Will & Harper, like when Harper is misgendered at a diner, something she sadly has accepted as “an inevitability.” But there are also moments of happy surprise. Harper gets misgendered again at a small-town bar, and while the audience holds their breath, thinking it could escalate into a scary situation, the man quickly apologizes. Not only that, but he even tells Will that the support for his friend is really beautiful, confiding that he has some nonbinary friends himself. There are many interactions with locals — a key point of the road trip — and I wish we would have gotten to marinate with them a little longer as the pacing moves rather quickly. Still, they had hundreds of hours worth of footage to parse through to edit, and while it’s not perfect, the pacing isn’t half bad when taking that into consideration.

Luckily, we do get a decent amount of time with Harper’s incredible family. Her kids state it was easy to accept Harper for who she was, noting the change was somewhat gradual and not altogether shocking. Her sister, on the other hand, was extremely surprised but responded to Harper’s coming-out email immediately, deciding that speed of acceptance was more important than getting the wording exactly right. But it sounds like she said the perfect thing anyway — “I’ve always wanted a sister” is something Harper remembers with a smile.

Many moments of reflection are bittersweet. Harper loves a photo from her childhood where she had long hair, as it looks like the real her, though she mourns the youth she could have had if she had transitioned earlier. But she’s realistic about this, too. Her life wouldn’t have been the same if she had, after all, and there are too many good things that happened to wish it would have all been different. Harper remembers the freedom of wearing dresses on her own before coming out, but there was always an undercurrent of fear someone would catch her — particularly if the police pulled her over while wearing women’s clothing. Unfortunately, this is a very rational concern considering the horrific state of constant anti-trans legislation being proposed and passed by the government.

If there’s one thing we can take away from Will & Harper, it’s that transitioning and allyship can both save lives. Harper candidly recalls being suicidal but states that, since she’s come out, all she wants to do is live. She also rationally knows it’s not the vast majority of trans people’s realities to have a cisgender person there to “take the heat off them” all the time, but hopefully, this movie can start to change that. After all, it shows people that being an ally just means being a friend, and supporting the trans community is as simple as accepting them and using your voice to protect them — even if you might not understand everything all the time. Every trans person deserves a Will Ferrell in their corner, and every cisgender person has the responsibility to be a Will Ferrell to someone else. The world needs more cowbell, but more than that, it needs more acceptance, more friendship, more Wills, and more Harpers.

Will & Harper REVIEWWill & Harper is accessible and important, acting as a sweet road trip comedy while having the potential to change lives ProsThe documentary is entertaining and educational in equal measure. It candidly shows both the challenges and joys of Harper’s experience as a trans woman. Will Ferrell’s platform and openness will inspire more people to be allies. Cons’Saturday Night Live’ cameos can take away from the focus on the core duo’s friendship. The pacing moves too quickly at times to dive deeply into important subjects.

Will & Harper had its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.