Lucia Neverman has great style. She never goes out of fashion and her quick wit remains totally fresh. As years go by and memory fails her, though, she carries herself with ageless grace.
Her story, imperfect as it is, offers a perspective that audiences rarely get to see. Lucia is a transwoman in her 60s facing progressive stages of Alzheimer’s. Names elude her and memories bleed into the present, but she never ever loses her grasp on the bewitching body and the strong sense of self for which she fought tirelessly in her youth. Even a failing brain can’t make her forget herself.
That great sense of self-assurance, confidence, and poise comes alive in a vivaciously realized performance by Justin Vivian Bond. The legendary cabaret performer and stage star gets her first lead role after appearing in films like Shortbus and Can You Ever Forgive Me? She owns the screen with great lead character energy in this sophomore feature from Cuban-Canadian director Rodrigo Barriuso (The Translator). Neverman gives a refreshing portrait of trans life while tackling complicated subject matter with a delicate hand.
As Lucia says goodbye to her beloved lakehouse and dog Bacon, her compassionate caregiver Rose (Zaiba Baig) helps her take the plunge by moving to a care home. It’s not an easy move for a woman who rallied in the streets for autonomy. The care home contrasts sharply from the warm Muskoka cottage, while Lucia’s thorny new caregiver, Eleanor (Marie-Josée Croze) is no Rose. Eleanor, a transphobic sourpuss, seems determined to make Lucia’s transition to a new home as hard as possible.
The setting changes, but the fight continues as Lucia asserts her right to dignity. Eleanor’s brittleness begins as mere coldness, but as Lucia settles in (a bit too leisurely in some meandering scenes) and makes friends, including a delightfully frisky neighbour (Deborah Grover), Eleanor escalates to microaggressions and misgendering. Lucia doesn’t let anything faze her, though, and carries on.
The origins of Lucia’s unflappable spirit becomes clear as memories blur into her present. Flashback scenes show a firecracker of a young woman, played here with a terrific spark by Eva Elliot Irving (The Pitt). Lucia’s younger self carries a true fighter’s spirit as she marches for LGBTQ rights and navigates early loves, including a tempestuous partnership with Helen (Jess Salguerio). It’s palpably clear that Lucia will never forget this spitfire self even as she loses track of the years.
Irving and Bond create notable continuity to their performances. It’s as if Lucia carries herself with built in muscle memory. Her poise and gait helps blur the slippages in time and memory as Barriuso’s camera often favours fleeting handheld images to convey the transitional moments.
Neverman laudably keeps Lucia’s identity to the post-transition years, too. While Rose gives the care home’s administrators some literature about working with trans patients, the film, written by Barriuso and Kyah Green, doesn’t treat gender as something to play with. It firmly respects Lucia’s plight and her hold on her identity. In doing so, Neverman offers a tribute to the elders who worked so hard for the freedom that people of our generation enjoy today.
As for nurse sourpuss, however, that’s another story. Croze’s terse maid sometimes strains credibility as a caregiver so uninterested in care, but the film leaves one wondering about the source of her anger and lack of empathy. The care home itself provides a suffocating environment, a dark and stale place one needs to escape.
However, Barriuso crafts this stifling world in service of the great woman who seems so out of place. Lucia’s a bright light one won’t soon forget.
Neverman premiered at TIFF 2026.
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