An engaging coming-of-age tale, The Bearded Girl is so full of charm that you can’t help but fall for it. Honest and true to itself, it’s a film about finding yourself even when you have a pre-defined legacy to uphold. Jody Wilson has marked herself out as a filmmaker we need to keep an eye on.

A sideshow can be a magical place. For those who live and work there, it can be a safe haven. For Cleo, her role in the family-run exhibit is clear: as the newest generation of proud, bearded women. She follows their legacy of sword-swallowing, and her overbearing mother, Lady Andre. But outside the show tents of Paradise County is a big world, and when Cleo’s fresh ideas for their sword show aren’t embraced, she gets the itch to leave her talented fringe family to find love and perhaps a new normal that doesn’t include facial hair.

One thing that writer/director Jody Wilson achieves in her film The Bearded Girl is that the film never truly judges its sideshow characters for who they are. Cleo doesn’t leave the sideshow because she wants to be different and not judged for her appearance. She leaves because she didn’t feel seen or heard. We have a character who loves who she is and what she does. She wants to be able to do things her way, to be trusted. She is tired of the constant training and being forced to perform in a way that has historically been the preferred method by her elders. She has her ideas, but she isn’t being heard. So, when her frustrations overflow, she leaves.

It’s also much more of a multi-generational story than you imagine, with Cleo’s mother, Lady Andre, only pushing back on Cleo and her ideas because she has experienced what Cleo hasn’t yet; she is afraid, not only for herself but for her daughter. She is terrified of people laughing or judging Cleo for how she looks, and so, she sticks to tradition, sticks to what has worked for years and is simply unwilling to risk any change, just in case emotional pain follows it. Cleo is a character who does not want to fit into the mold created for her by her mother, nor the one expected of her outside of the circus, she wants to be something new, something unique, that she feels comfortable and confident being and if that isn’t the perfect message for a teenage girl or boy, then I don’t know what is.

Once Cleo goes out into the wide world, she knows from experiences shared with her by her mother and non-bearded sister, Josephine, that she needs to be clean-shaven. It should be noted that there is a great early subplot in The Bearded Girl about Josephine being jealous of Cleo, as she is unable to grow a beard, but I digress.

Shocked at not finding women gorgeous with beards, she does as she is told. Upon leaving the safety of the sideshow, she finds that the chains of responsibility and all the rules and traditions that weighed her down are gone when she is clean-shaven. Yet, as a natural and trained performer, she has to perform constantly; it just so happens that those to whom she is performing are not paying customers. Thus, wild stories are fabricated, and her secret creates a mystery about her that draws others to her.

As Cleo is embracing her new life, an issue back home has arisen. Cleo is being groomed to lead the business, and a clause in their land contract means she needs to be there on the date of the move; otherwise, the circus loses their home and business to a greedy property developer (the closest to a villain in The Bearded Girl). So a rain against time is the order of the day.

There is a great weight to Jody Wilson’s writing, with the cast generally playing it subtle and more realistic; their characters, much like their surroundings, feel authentic and lived-in. So, when the more dramatic moments start to seep through into the film, it hits you emotionally because the performances have been so low-key. It’s a welcome rarity to see a cast work so in sync with a script like this.

Anwen O’Driscoll is perfect here as Cleo, an utterly faultless performance. She carries the film, and even then, some subplots don’t fully work. Her ability to command the screen has you moving quickly on from them. O’Driscoll has a lot of work to do throughout The Bearded Girl, as Wilson writes a character who is both proud and pained. You often see her working hard to conceal her discomfort in the “normal” world. It’s just a great performance from an actor we will certainly see plenty of in the future.

By combining that with a young woman finding her place in the world, we have a fantastic film from Jody Wilson. There is a great charm that fills the film, thanks to the script, which ensures that you are never worried about it falling flat, as the main threads of the story are that strong. With the simple decision to have a character who just wants that respect and to be given the chance to be seen and heard, it makes The Bearded Girl stand out as a film all teenage girls should watch.

★★★ 3/4

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