Fantasia Festival 2025: ‘The Bearded Girl’ is an enchanting, coming-of-age tale

Taking cues from a long lineage of sideshow cinema, including 1932’s Freaks, Jody Wilson stages a uniquely delightful coming-of-age story, decorated with a glittery, fairy-tale aesthetic, that is equally resonant as it is deeply personal. The Bearded Girl, playing this year’s Fantasia Festival, sinks into a common experience. We all want to find our place in the world, and Cleo (Anwen O’Driscoll) struggles with her role as an 88th-generation bearded woman and wants more than anything to find something different for her life. Wilson fuses humanity with the exaggerated, larger-than-life existence Cleo finds herself in, culminating in a stunning examination of what it means to be human.

Cleo feels the pressure of living up to her mother’s expectations. Lady Andre (Jessica Paré) prides herself on upholding their long-standing traditions of sword-swallowing. But Cleo desires more, desperately seeking her own way in the world that’s not tethered to familiar standards. Believing the sideshow act needs updating for modern audiences, Cleo proposes several more dazzling ideas, but Lady Andre disregards them, as they don’t fall in line with custom. Their relationship becomes so severed that Cleo leaves behind the flapping tents of their home for the greater Paradise County and limitless possibilities.

In her meager journey, Cleo strikes up a fiery romance with the shaggy-haired, motorcycle-riding Blaze (Keenan Tracey). To adhere to society’s standards for women, she shaves every single day, hoping to hide to true identity from her new lover. Blaze brings Cleo out of her isolated shell in exciting ways, but how long can such a love really last? It’s only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down around her. Perhaps, it’s a necessary transition for Cleo to understand her mother in a new way and appreciate what she’s been taught up to this point. Meanwhile, Lady Andre clutches onto her land as a scummy business suit threatens to snatch it all away.

Wilson laces up the story with raw vulnerability, owed largely to O’Driscoll’s excitingly layered and nuanced lead performance. There’s a truthfulness to her portrayal, often oscillating from anger to desperation and sorrow. And sometimes, all three swirl together into an incredibly powerful wind tunnel. She’s met by Paré’s profoundly subtle turn, a woman anguished and longing for her daughter’s return. Together, they emerge as a tour de force of emotion, weighted down by the most honest of human experiences. We all want to be loved and understood. Even under such a fantastical story, it’s honest.

The Bearded Girl does, unfortunately, suffer from a rushed finale. Necessary character beats are truncated to give way to a tightly-bound conclusion that does a disservice to the material. Cleo’s story arc doesn’t get the resolution it properly deserves. Instead, what we’re left with is a limp dash to the finale. A good 30 minutes could have been easily added without sacrificing the viewing experience for the audience. But it’s not so slack as to distract from what came before, as it’s a legitimate examination of humankind and our collective dismay over identity, compassion, and connection.