‘Will & Harper’ review: Will Ferrell and Harper Steele’s documentary explores friendship, acceptance, and self-discovery

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele in ‘Will & Harper’
| Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Netflix

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele had been buddies from their Saturday Night time Reside days. Ferrell grew to become one of many breakout stars of the favored sketch comedy present the place Steele was the top author from 2004 to 2008. The 2 continued to be buddies and collaborators, going to video games and dive bars and co-writing the fantastic Eurovision Tune Contest: The Story of Fireplace Saga.

Steele got here out as a transwoman in 2021. “The largest query when folks come out of the closet is, ‘Will I nonetheless be cherished’,” she says of their documentary Will & Harper. Ferrell and Steele undertake a street journey from New York to Los Angeles, as a method of popping out to America with Ferrell’s superstar as a cushion towards the slings and arrows of shock. The street journey can also be a method of strengthening the bond between them, to see what, if something has modified.

The variations are there from the packing stage itself, the place earlier as a person, she would pack a few tee-shirts, a pair of denims and underwear, now Steele has a troublesome time simply selecting the footwear to pack! After packing up the street journey necessities, which embody, based on Steele, “chairs, a cooler and a natty beer,” the 2 set off from New York with a cease at SNL studios the place they meet their former colleagues and buddies together with Tina Fey.

On the 16-day journey throughout America, they meet folks in bars and fuel stations. At The Grand Canyon, they meet a therapist who poignantly confesses to being unable to assist a affected person. Additionally they meet Harper’s youngsters and her sister, which has Ferrell asking them how they really feel about Steele popping out. The lengthy hours within the automotive let Ferrell ask Steele questions on relationship, surgical procedure and emotions of despair and pleasure.

Will Ferrell and Harper Steele in ‘Will & Harper’
| Picture Credit score:
Courtesy of Netflix

There are conversations on how Steele selected her title (her mum went to highschool with Harper Lee) and the way “plenty of transitioning is studying to just accept your self” which she does with some problem together with her “low male voice”. Over the various miles, there may be Ferrell’s tantrum to go to a Dunkin’ Donuts, doing laundry when clear underwear has virtually run out, analysing comedy (which Steele hates to do), a joke involving Nordstrom Rack and getting beverage jackets for his or her beer cans, which have been christened Dolores and Cornelius.

Whereas most are welcoming of the duo, the expertise in Texas shouldn’t be so nice. It’s important to, nevertheless, take the tough with the sleek, together with karaoke to ‘I Bought You Babe’ and attempting the unicycle in Harper’s hometown, identical to she used to do in her two years of Junior Excessive. The one factor that takes you out of the movie is the truth that it’s all being filmed; so there may be an artificiality to this very actual documenting of an intensely private journey.

On the finish of the journey, as Ferrell and Steele sit on the seashore, and Ferrell offers Steele a gift that could be a valuable distillation of the journey, traces from ‘Harper and Will Go West’, the theme music Kristen Wiig, is tasked to give you echo within the thoughts, “It takes 3,000 miles to get this shut.”

Will & Harper is at present streaming on Netflix