Jimpa
by Rachel Willis
Director Sohpie Hyde’s film, Jimpa, opens with a narrative that lays the groundwork for a family drama about what acceptance truly means.
Jimpa (John Lithgow) is an older gay man who left his family in Adelaide, Australia to move to Amsterdam during the height of the AIDS epidemic. There’s a recap of this history from two perspectives, Jimpa’s daughter, Hannah (Olivia Colman), and his nonbinary grandchild, Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde).
The film centers around Hannah and Frances spending time with Jimpa, as Hannah looks to make a film about her parents and their conflict-free partnership when Jimpa came out as gay.
Colman and Hyde make it clear that Hannah is afraid of conflict, so much so, she rushes to mitigate everyone’s words. Her explanations for others may sound good, but in her urgency to avoid conflict, she steals their agency. And yet, there are times when Hannah fails to step in when it could most help her teenager.
Jimpa is disrespectful of Frances’s choice to identify themselves as non-binary. He introduces them as his “grandthing” and mocks their “sudden” lack of gender. Though grandthing is said with a certain amount of affection, it’s painful to watch because Frances looks up to their grandfather as a hero.
There’s also a collision of age. The older gay men have trouble understanding the younger generation’s motivations and language, fail to recognize the struggles of feeling like an outsider when things are (in their minds) so much better now.
Jimpa feels more like a lesson in gender and sexual politics than a cohesive narrative film. This can be done gracefully, but Hyde’s approach is too heavy handed.
Jimpa‘s second half takes an unexpected path that serves the film well. Hannah confronts and addresses her true feelings, allowing Coleman and Mason-Hyde to shine. Hyde finally gives Mason-Hyde the opportunity to be more than their gender identity.
Though the film’s opening act is defined by a kind of clunkiness, Jimpa’s final moments are handled with enough tenderness to make up for a lot of that.
