Claire Danes and Jim Parsons star as a Brooklyn couple facing the possibility that their four-year-old might be trans in Silas Howard's comedy drama
Claire Danes and Jim Parsons star as one-time lawyer Alex and therapist Greg, New York City parents struggling in different ways to process what their four-year-old son's preference for dressing up in skirts and playing with so-called girls' toys might signify about his gender identity in the simply lovely comedy-drama A Kid Like Jake. Adapted for the screen by Daniel Pearle from his own play, the film strives to present an even-handed account of the couple's increasingly divergent views, with Alex resistant to "putting a label" on their child, and Greg more open to embracing Jake's transgender nature.
Director Silas Howard, trans himself, elicits superb performances not just from the leads but from the crack cast of supports, which includes Octavia Spencer, Priyanka Chopra, Ann Dowd and, in an especially vivid turn as a neurotic patient, Amy Landecker from Transparent, a show for which Howard has directed several episodes. In fact, the deployment of that Transparent house style — with its overlapping dialogue, dodging and weaving camerawork and a milieu that centers around an assortment of lovable-vile boho-bougie characters — makes this feel almost like an East Coast spinoff of Jill Soloway's award-winning series.
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