About thirty years ago, Will Ferrell became a cast member on Saturday Night Live where he became friends with Andrew Steele, one of the writers who had also been hired that year, and they stayed close friends even after Ferrell left the show and went on to other things. About three years ago, Ferrell received an email that Steele had sent out to a few friends saying that she had transitioned and was a woman and now had the name Harper Steele.

In a subsequent conversation, Steele told Ferrell how she used to enjoy driving back and forth across this vast country many times, stopping at small towns, going to local bars, meeting the people, and enjoying the activities of the local communities. She felt that doing so now as a trans woman would not feel as comfortable or even safe and that she missed the ability to do so. Ferrell suggested that they do such a road trip together, and this documentary chronicles their 17-day journey from New York to Los Angeles, stopping at Steele’s hometown in Iowa, doing the kinds of things that Steele used to do alone.

Ferrell tells her that although they are such close friends, he is somewhat nervous about saying the wrong thing and wants to learn what the new ground rules are for their friendship. In a way the ‘new ground rules’, when someone you know tells you that they have transitioned, should be simple. You refer to them by their new name and chosen pronoun and that should be it, although old habits are hard to shake and you may occasionally slip up. Anything else, in the words of Tim Walz, is none of your damn business. But Steele tells Ferrell that he can ask her anything he likes and that opening allows Steele to describe her life and the difficulties she had to navigate when growing up and feeling not quite right in being assigned a male identity. So the documentary consists of them going together to various bars and events on the road and then chatting in the car and reflecting on what they experienced.

In general, the trip goes well, with the local populace seemingly welcoming Steele, even in a biker bar that has a wall decorated with a confederate flag, a creepy Trump poster, and one saying ‘Fuck Joe Biden’. Of course the presence of a camera crew recording things and the presence of a celebrity like Ferrell would act as a moderating influence. One notable exception is when they go to a Texas steakhouse where, if you eat a 72-oz steak in one hour, you get the meal for free. Ferrell decides to ham it up and takes up the challenge while dressed as Sherlock Holmes. In the film, that scene ends abruptly, switching to the two of them talking next day in the car where Ferrell says that he felt that he had let Steele down, and both of them scrolling through hateful social media posts about the event. It was a puzzling transition but this article explains what happened and was omitted from the film

They received what they described as an unexpected and uncomfortable response from diners at a Texas restaurant after Steele mentioned the state hadn’t done enough for trans rights, the New York Times reported. 

“I’m from Iowa, but I will raise a glass to your great state of Texas,” Steele said to a receptive audience of diners at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, where Ferrell and Steele planned to attempt the restaurant’s famous 72-ounce steak challenge. 

“I wish you guys would do more for trans rights in this state,” Steele added, which silenced the cheers and was met with a few groans from the audience, Chron reported. 

“Cheers to Texas and trans rights, right?” Ferrell added. The toast didn’t make it into the documentary, but Steele and Ferrell shared their responses to the moment afterward. 

“The room started to feel very wrong to me,” Steele said in the film. “I was feeling a little like my transness was on display, I guess, and suddenly that sort of made me feel not great.” 

“The saddest part for me is … I just feel … I feel like I let you down in that moment,” Ferrell said in response. 

I didn’t really have a grasp on how intense it was going to be and felt responsible for not properly vetting the situation we were putting ourselves in,” Ferrell told The New York Times. “That felt like it was going to be this benign place where you eat a big steak in the amount of time, and then you walk in and it’s a thousand people seated in this room and I was like, ‘Oh, why are we here?'”

Steele described the feeling of being “on display” in that moment. 

“We gave a little toast, and I said something about passing a trans bill, and the room did a kind of reversal and a little bit of a boo and a woman shouted out, ‘We still love you.’ I hate the phrase,” Steele said. “I could be misinterpreting this woman completely, but this is the feeling I had in the room: The ‘still’ is conditional. You still love me when I finally give up being trans and give my life over to Christ. They still love me even though I’m some kind of sinner or something. I felt that.”

” I wished I’d walked in and said: ‘No. This is going to be terrible. Let’s just go,'” Ferrell said in response. “I was feeling that remorse and guilt of even going there.”

Steele had previously criticized the New York Times in an interview with The Independent as “generally left-leaning, but also sometimes very anti-trans. It’s odd…” 

“It’s why I first tend to ask reporters who interview me if they believe in me,” Steele added in that interview. “Do they believe that I exist? That I’m valid? Because that’s not always part of the conversation. I like to start there. Because there are many people in the liberal community who can’t seem to get their heads around it for one reason or another.”

Ferrell also said that “transphobia” comes from people “not being confident” in themselves. 

“There is hatred out there,” Ferrell told The Independent. “It’s very real, and it’s very unsafe for trans people in certain situations.” 

“It’s so strange to me, because Harper is finally… her,” he added. “She’s finally who she was always meant to be. Whether or not you can ultimately wrap your head around that, why would you care if somebody’s happy? Why is that threatening to you? If the trans community is a threat to you, I think it stems from not being confident or safe with yourself.”

Ferrell’s on-screen persona is that of a genial doofus (according to reports that also happens to describe him in real life) so he sometimes asks Steele what to me are cringe-inducing personal questions. But Steele gamely responds to them and the end result is a documentary that is both heartwarming and enlightening, as Steele describes what life has been like for her, from childhood on, as she grappled with her sense of self.

I hope a lot of people see this film because it will show them that trivializing the issue of gender identity and discriminating against the trans community is just plain wrong.

It is being screened on Netflix. Here’s the trailer.