Willy/Milly (1986)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Best movie ever!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I have not come across many transgender stories in feature films. Transamerican and XXY are both fairly serious, reminiscent of the novels of such as Julie Anne Peters. Also, XXY as a subject that is close to transgender rather being solidly part of it. Mrs Doubtfire as definitely not a transgender story, though it is what many understand to be transgender??? Could be that Doubtfire is transgendered without being aware of it or being able to admit it? I find that there are a lot of insidious pressures towards gender change being hidden.Willy Milly, my UK DVD gives Something Special as the title, is not serious. It is strongly in the tradition of male to female fantasy stories, except those typically have the male to female ending up as permanently female. Here the story was written by someone likely born as a male and ends with the female to male happily ending up back as female. The qualities of maleness, crude, cave man, for how Willy is taught fit the genre: It does not line up with how many of the males actually are. Memories of the transition scene in She's The Man (2006), and how most of the males actually are in that story. If Willy Milly had been written by a female to male it would be rather different.I experience the story as really okay. Fun escapist nonsense. My DVD is by Pegasus Entertainment. The only flaw with my disk is image quality. IMDb lists the feature as having been made on 35mm, but the visual quality is poor, as if it originated on video. For me it is worth it because of the story.

The likable Pamela Segall has a great screen presence but an amateurish script in this teen comedy of one young girl's discovery that her sex is changed simply because she had a desire to know what it was like to be a boy. She finds out one day that anatomy has played a dirty trick on her, and she is now a he. While her performance playing a boy makes sense if the character was pre-teen, there is no fooling me that there is no way to be a high school aged student. Yet, he is able to beat up the school bully, attract flirtatious high school girls and not drive parents Party Duke and John Glover to a mental institution. This film keeps changing its direction, with continuity a major factor in my dislike of the film as a whole. The one touching moment comes when Segall in boy attire comforts a wheelchair bound male student who confesses his homosexuality to him/her. It was a tender moment that I didn't quite suspect but it is badly plotted. A violent sequence is truly disturbing even if it is the bully getting his butt whipped. I finally gave up and moved onto better films. Perhaps the mid 1980s were too soon to tackle this subject. Its a nice try but a misfire just the same.

" Boys have got it made ", or so reckons ' Willy Milly's ' Milly Niceman ( Pamela Segall ), a budding young astronomer whose life is dramatically changed thanks to an ancient spell and a rare solar eclipse. For Milly's deepest darkest desire is granted, enabling her to experience life as a boy and with all the correct equipment to do it! But Milly soon discovers that being ' Willy ' doesn't neccesarily mean that life gets any easier, especially when she comes up against the high school bully!Based on a story by Alan Friedman, Paul Schneider's offbeat ' Willy Milly ' is a truly hilarious fantasy comedy, one of those rare movies that can be enjoyed time and time again. Sharply scripted and impeccably acted, Segall delights in the lead role and she is offered terrific support by the likes of Patty Duke and John Glover as the Niceman parents and the lovely Mary Tanner as her dumbfounded best friend Stephanie.

This is one of those films i just have to watch again every now and then, because i like it, and because it's damn funny. It tells the story of a girl who wants to be a boy, and by magical means, her wish is granted. Some scenes had me rolling on the floor laughing.This film, besides being a great movie, also deals with some important teen issues in a very funny way, which i thought was great.One of my favorite feel good movies!10/10