Written and Directed: Harry Dodge and Silas Howard
There comes a time when you feel like the tides are turning. In the early noughties, queer films made a subtle shift from the self-aware exploration of sexuality and the self into real storytelling, concentrating on the experiences queer people have, rather than just on the experience of being gay.
While By Hook or By Crook fits perfectly well on the bill of any gay and lesbian film festival, it makes only vague references to the two lead characters actually being transgender. In fact, while I’m proud to claim this film as a “queer film”, I’m almost ashamed to have to pigeon-hole it as such, because labels like that seem so limiting for a film with such enormous scope. As we close in on its 25th anniversary, we can also use it as a bar to measure how far we have, and haven’t, come as a community.
This was a film conceived, written, financed, and made by Harry Dodge and Silas Howard, who also star in the film. Sly, a young butch (since it isn’t mentioned, it’s difficult to know if Sly is transgender) raised by her father in Hicksville USA, fails to make the mortgage payments on her house. When the bank forecloses, she decides money is the only way to find happiness, so she travels to San Francisco to rob a bank, the theory being to turn herself from one of the losers of society into a winner.
The problem is, she doesn’t have a clue about robbing a bank. She doesn’t have the money to pay for a gun, so she drifts, homeless, hungry, until she saves Valentine (Harry Dodge) from a brutal beating. The two become fast friends, both in spite of and because of Valentine’s erratic, manic-depressive behavior, surviving by small-time grifting in San Francisco.
We the two friends as their lives become intertwined. We share their tragedies, their failings, their long term loves, and fleeting moments of happiness. Finally they learn through each other that money is the least of their concerns - that courage, love, loyalty and true friendship are the things that will make or break them in life.
The film is gritty, dark, and contains some of the best acting that independent film has to offer. Special mention goes to Stanya Kahn for her moving portrayal of Billie, Valentine’s long-time lover. This is quality character-driven drama the likes of which had never been since on the queer festival circuit at that time, and only rarely since.
Beautifully shot in digital video, By Hook or By Crook is a visual feast that draws you in and lets you wallow in the murky places, as unforgiving to its audiences as it is to its characters. It’s not the prettiest way to spend 90 minutes, but if you can damn well find it, it may just be one of the most rewarding film experiences you ever have.