What if you were haunted by the literal ghost of your past?
This is the premise of Homebodies, a genre-defying SBS Original miniseries selected for the Series Mania about a young trans man and the version of himself he left behind.
Created by award-winning and ADG-nominated writer and director AP Pobjoy, the series opens with the return of Darcy (Luke Wiltshire) to his hometown in regional NSW to take care of his estranged mother Nora (Claudia Karvan). Their tentative attempt at reconnection is complicated by the fact that Nora, who Darcy has had little contact with since transitioning and escaping to Sydney, appears to have manifested the ghost of his pre-transition teenage-self: the spirited and proudly lesbian Dee (Jazi Hall). Nora and Dee developed a closeness in Darcy’s absence that leaves him with the slight problem that his mother might prefer a version of himself who no longer exists. How are you supposed to compete with yourself?
Dee, for her part, is angry at being forgotten and buried. She’s a plucky, ambitious, vibrant 17-year-old who doesn’t understand why she was never afforded the chance to grow up. Tired of being tethered to the house and coddled by Nora, she decides she’s willing to do whatever it takes to escape the limbo she’s trapped in and actually live. Darcy must confront his demons (or really, just the one) or risk losing his present and the future he’s worked so hard for.
Hot new talent on the block Luke Wiltshire is magnetic on screen, his warm, soulful performance anchoring the story into one of vulnerability, cautious love and healing. His skill at commanding a scene and embedding emotions deep under the skin makes it hard to believe he wasn’t already a fixture of Australian TV.
“It's my first big, professional TV show,” he confesses to SBS, “and it was so lovely that it gets to be about something I'm very, very personally connected to and passionate about.”
Wiltshire transitioned when he was 16 years old, so he was able to bring a particular intimacy and understanding to the conflicting emotions that arose for Darcy when he found himself suddenly having autonomy over his identity.
“I think with a lot of trans people, it's almost like there's your first big coming out that you do, and then you think that’s it, you're going to be done,” he explained.
“And then after I transitioned, people didn't look at me and assume that was my life story. I would have the choice of whether or not I shared that about myself. So then I had to address my own internal shame for the second time in my life and come to terms with being okay with the fact that I was different and owning that again.”
They've tackled a really sensitive story and… it’s not indulgent, it's not sombre, it's not depressing, it's life-affirming.
One might be surprised at the confluence of themes in this series, from homecoming to transness to self-discovery to ghost horror — this family drama certainly feels like it defies genre conventions with its mix of hauntedness and coming of age. But the thing is, supernatural themes have long been used to explore queer experiences, particularly in the horror and thriller genres. Sometimes, horror is realising you don’t feel the same as everyone else.
“You go through puberty, and you just start to feel this horrid disconnect,” Wiltshire shares.
“And it’s when you don't have shows like this, or you don't have people to look to, to go ‘what is happening to me?’; it results in this confused haze that is so frustrating, and your brain isn't even fully developed to understand what's going on or why it's happening, or if it's normal.”
Titane and I Saw The TV Glow are two recent films that come to mind, which explore transness and the complicated family dynamics that can follow coming out, but where these provocative and heart-wrenching tales are a kick to the stomach, Homebodies feels more like a comforting glow in the chest.
“If I had seen a show like this when I was growing up, I would have figured myself out a lot sooner, and it would have been a lot easier for my entire family,” Wiltshire says.
Indeed, family is at the centre of Homebodies, which explores the rift between problematic parent and queer child, and what it might take to mend it. It’s a delicate balance to depict both Darcy’s hurt and Claudia’s grief, but the show triumphantly manages to approach both perspectives with passion and without either being invalidated.
Claudia Karvan is brilliant and moving as Nora. Complicated, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately well-meaning, she is a mother whose crime is that she cannot reconcile the grief of losing a daughter with the joy of gaining a son.
“I wanted to play Nora as truthfully as possible, even though I could judge Nora,” Karvan says.
“She's really quite clueless and says some hurtful things and is dismissive some of the time, and sometimes she prioritises her own fear and her own disappointment. I really enjoyed just giving her that, because there's a lot of heart in this show. You could really invest in the transgressions that she makes and the number of times that she puts a foot in it.”
Ultimately, the goal for both Karvan and Wiltshire is to show young queer kids that undefiant, repentant joy is possible, that sometimes you don’t have to choose between being yourself and having a family. That trans kids can have it all.
“On behalf of the whole team, I'm most proud of the fact that they've tackled a really sensitive story and… it’s not indulgent, it's not sombre, it's not depressing, it's life-affirming, and it hasn't lost any of the complexity of the emotion and any of the confrontational aspects,” Karvan says.
“By using this high concept method of storytelling, it really brings the audience along for the ride, but delivers quite a complex and emotional story.”
Homebodies is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
