‘Woman Of…’ Review: Malgorzata Szumowska’s Affecting Character Study Rescues Polish Trans People From the Invisible Margins
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With her enigmatically titled Woman Of… (Kobieta z..), Malgorzata Szumowska returns from the magical satire of Never Gonna Snow Again to trenchant social realism, recounting a journey lasting half a lifetime, of sacrifice, sorrow and resilience.
Written and directed in collaboration with regular cinematographer and creative partner Michal Englert, this is a rare close-up of an older trans woman making tough choices in a majority Catholic country that remains legislatively and socially hostile. The film’s compassionate gaze and stirring performances make it an illuminating window into gender recognition in an unaccommodating environment.
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Like many dramas focused on a highly specific community and developed out of extensive interviews, Woman Of… doesn’t entirely escape the feel of a representational project that ticks all the required boxes in a not entirely seamless narrative. However, that doesn’t make it any less sincere or moving, not only in the principal character’s determined path through hardship to personal emancipation, but in the varying degrees of gradual acceptance by the people she loves.
There may be some resistance among LGBTQ gatekeepers to the casting of a cis woman in the main role. But the directors point out that acting schools in Poland remain strictly binary. Trans advisors consulting on the project reportedly agreed that the part demanded an experienced actress, also as a protective measure against the potential stigmatization that could follow such public exposure.
Trans and non-binary people were involved in developing characters and are given visibility onscreen in pleasing scenes that point up the vital role of support groups.
Solidarity is echoed in the political backdrop, too, with the unionization and workers’ rights movement of that name, which hastened the shift from an oppressive regime to a democratic government, depicted here in a celebratory 1989 street march.
The film’s title is intended to evoke the Andrzej Wajda films Man of Iron and Man of Marble, charting the rise of the labor movement. Transformation thereby becomes a dual theme, even if ongoing homophobia and transphobia mean that equal freedoms are not extended to everyone.
The script shuffles the timeline in the beginning, starting with glimpses from the protagonist’s childhood and youth. Still presenting as male in those younger years and identified by the birth name Andrzej, the role is played from adolescence with androgynous sensuality, a sheath of blond hair and live currents of sexual energy by Mateusz Wieclawek.
The attention-grabbing opening has a group of excitable young girls in mid-flight through a bucolic field, shouting Andrzej’s name and jeering after the kid has run off in one of their First Holy Communion veils and scrambled up a tree. It then jumps to reedy teenage Andrzej’s physical examination for military service, where painted toenails prove a blessing in disguise, even if they invite ridicule.
Bathed in warm natural light and making evocative use of slow-motion, the visual aesthetic feeds a vibrant, erotically charged portrait of the early years of the protagonist’s romance with and eventual marriage to free-spirited nurse Iza (played first by Bogumila Bajor and later by Joanna Kulig, the revelation of Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War). Their union produces two children.
The directors’ knowing placement of movie theater banners for Pretty Woman and The Double Life of Veronique makes wry acknowledgement of the main character’s first experiments with gender expression as the action jumps a little awkwardly from 2004 back to 1989 and then 1992. Diagnosed with low testosterone by a smarmy doctor who advises some hot escort sex, Andrzej confesses to feeling “this pull to the other side.” But in the years that follow, the appearance of a mustache and a more masculine haircut suggest resistance to that pull.
The majority of the story unfolds from 2004 to the present, with Malgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik stepping into the central role, gradually becoming known as Aniela. Choosing to center the drama on a woman transitioning in middle-age in a gossipy provincial town adds considerably to the pathos of what becomes a drama of courage and survival.
Aniela’s furtive research into gender identity in foreign magazines and at an internet café leads to a frustrating odyssey of medical and legal appointments that map out the daunting bureaucratic hurdles standing between any Polish trans person and advanced hormone therapy or surgery.
Iza becomes aware of her husband’s transitional process only after finding a notebook documenting 15 years of personal experience. Divorce is a legal requirement, causing her to become hurt and angry. But as much as an individual character study, the real strength of Woman Of… is as an unconventional love story. Iza’s slow thaw as she comes around to accepting the person at the center of her life for decades is where the film draws much of its emotional power.
Kulig is quite wonderful at conveying the push-pull of a marriage upended but a mutual devotion that endures. Iza’s increasing openness has a touching ripple effect on others, like Aniela’s brother Marek (Jacek Braciak), and in the end, even her bitter parents, whose wholesale rejection of her for years is just one of many stings. The more nuanced responses of Iza and Aniela’s children yield some lovely moments, even if those relationships are under-developed.
Without histrionics or big speeches, and with subtle gradations of physical transformation, the remarkable Hajewska-Krzysztofik builds a quietly heroic characterization as Aniela, marked by raw vulnerability that nonetheless hides fortitude and unapologetic dignity in the face of every humiliation or injustice that’s thrown at her.
And there are plenty of both — being conveniently job-eliminated and refused housing, drifting into sex work and facing a disproportionate prison sentence from an unashamedly prejudiced judge for a small-time offense. Simply being told by a visiting priest in jail that she is not living in the truth represents its own form of imprisonment.
Szumowska and Englert know better than to tie things up too neatly given the continuing absence of laws on gender recognition in Poland. But the tenderness and sensitivity of their concluding scenes resonate to make this an affecting portrait of hope and hard-won self-knowledge that could even help move the needle on LGBTQ rights in one of the European Union’s most stubbornly intolerant member states.
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