WARNING: Spoilers for Anything’s Possible ahead!
Billy Porter’s much-anticipated directorial debut Anything’s Possible has finally hit streaming, and the wait was all worth it.
The story follows trans teen Kelsa (Eva Reign) and her budding crush on artistic classmate Khal (Abubakr Ali) that develops into so much more, as well as the trials and tribulations surrounding their high school courtship.
As touching as the romance driving the film is, another relationship runs even deeper throughout — that of Kelsa and her mother, played by the one and only Renée Elise Goldsberry.
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Their sweet, easy relationship suddenly finds itself in choppy waters when she discovers the YouTube channel Kelsa has been using to document her transition journey and demands she take it down. On top of that, Kelsa’s situation at school has taken a turn for the worse, and her mother doesn’t feel it’s safe for her to be exposing that much of her life on the internet.
According to Porter and Reign, the scene was as divisive for those creating the movie as it was for the two characters. Porter found himself having to firmly contend that Kelsa’s mother’s decision was justified not only by her daughter’s transness, but by her age and Black culture.
“That was a bone of contention inside of the putting together of this film,” he reveals to Queerty. “This is a Black family, this is a Black mother, and this is how mad I had to get in the conversations about this.”
“I literally had to say in this fight, ‘Please, somebody look me in the face and say that if your child – your BLACK child – in this world right now, today, was posting her transition online without your knowledge, you wouldn’t lose your mind. PLEASE say that to me with a straight face.'”
Whereas Porter feels that Kelsa’s security needs to take precedence in that moment, 26-year-old Reign argues that her visibility and community are just as important.
“Growing up, me and my mom, we had that exact same fight 1000 times,” she explains. “And I get it, you’re scared for your child. On the flip side, Kelsa feels alone.”
“It’s hard when there are bullies out there who are saying that you’re a weirdo, that you’re a freak, all these things. Who do you turn to in those moments when there’s not anyone else like you that’s there for you to reach out and grab?”
She goes on to note that community outside of the internet is especially hard to come by for LGBTQ minors, as many queer-focused spaces are for people eighteen and up.
“The internet is the only thing that you really have when you’re a kid and you don’t have the freedom to go out and go to another space where there’s someone else like you,” she says.
This divide in attitudes behind the scenes reflects the community at large to an extent, with old-school fears and new-school optimism finding themselves at odds, especially amongst the most marginalized in the community.
Just as Kelsa’s stability at school is breaking down, so too is the stability of trans people in America, and many are left constantly walking that same tightrope between visibility and security.
While some viewers may not agree with Kelsa’s platform being taken away until she turns 18, Porter maintains that it was the right (or at the least, realistic) move for the pair’s situation and relationship.
“Like she says in the resolution, ‘I love you. You can’t put that thing back up, but I love you. You’re gonna be gone out of my house in three months, then you can do what you want.’ See, that’s the compromise,” Porter notes. “Turn eighteen, you can do what you want.”
If you haven’t already streamed it on Prime Video, check out this flirty new clip from the trans rom-com we all knew we needed, Anything’s Possible:
