The premise of the film is lovely on its own, but it's clear they took on too much in one film. I wasn't 100% sure who the lead character was; Noah or Finn, and in the end I didn't really care. There wasn't enough time or development dedicated to building them as deeper characters. Noah is so one sided it's painful, becoming forgetful when it needs to fuel the drama in the story.
However, the worst part, and this is by no means a dig at Yiana Pandelis, was the representation of a hard-of-hearing trans man. I would've highly preferred this to just be about a hard-of-hearing woman, or if they put in the effort to actually cast a trans or GNC actor for this role. It was sad to hear the producer preach about inclusivity and the need for a range of characters to be accurately represented on screen, only to have the one trans character appallingly drawn up.
It is insulting to cast a cis woman to play a transgender man in 2020. This was sloppy. The producer at the screening claimed they spent a year teaching Pandelis full Auslan in preparation, yet in the same breath claimed it was all too difficult to cast a trans man? Ridiculous. That is lazy casting. If not a transgender MAN, then at the very least there is a nonbinary or GNC person out there for the role.
As for the scenes of Finn going through transitional stages, why are we shown the exact same, recycled imagery from American films? Australian laws heavily regulate the distribution of T, much stricter than the US. They also do not allow the first dose to be administered at home, nor do they allow self administration for many new users. In most cases, people are actively encouraged to have their doses administered by a doctor at a practice. What came up in Unsound was recycled.
It made me wonder, did Finn really need to be trans? Could Pandelis have played a lesbian, and Noah been a woman? What did we see that was new here? What does a hard-of-hearing transgender man experience different to hearing trans man? I know from personal experience that voice change is the first and most obvious effect, but if you cannot hear that change yourself, what's the most exciting part?
This film needed more time to flesh its story and characters out. It felt too rushed and much of the chemistry is beyond lacking. I really wanted to like this film. I really wanted to view the inclusivity positively, but it ended up feeling transparent, just a way for a company to say "look, we're including DIFFERENT people!"
As a trans person, I felt excluded. And as it's about a trans person, I shouldn't have felt that way.
