Trans at last, happy at last: Elliot Page’s life moves to tears

When Elliot Page was supposed to be a girl, he was definitely a boy girl. Someone who loved Canada’s national sport: ice hockey. Played football and wrestled and spent his spare time making action figures. Whose greatest joy was wearing boy’s swimming trunks in the summer. Just not a bathing suit! Just no bikini!

The more feminine Elliot’s body became during puberty, the more he distanced himself from it, the more he let himself down. It was beyond his control that every bra felt like it was made of nettles, that he wanted to choke in every dress that he felt like counterfeit money in everything that marked him as a girl and just wanted to disappear. They called him Ellen then. And Ellen’s role model since early childhood was Elliot, the little boy in the red hoodie from “ET”, who rides the alien around in his bicycle basket.

Ellen, as becomes painfully clear in the autobiography «Pageboy», has always been Elliot. And with that also a kind of ETA being that needed another planet to live. Not the planet his family and society envisioned, and not the planet Hollywood. Not so anyway.

Though back then, as a pregnant teen, we all loved Page in “Juno” (it got an Oscar nomination for Best Actress). And Page as Roller Girl in Whip It. And from Page to Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception”. And from Page in “X-Men”. And so on. About this small, delicate, sturdy person of 1.55 meters with the dry voice and the unfeminine character of a watchful, suspicious spring. Page was not the least bit comfortable. Page was a refreshment. And always strangely serious.

The drama was hidden behind the sovereign facade. The martyrdom. On one occasion Page allows a role to get too close to him, causing him to let his own crisis dissolve in it and ‘live’ with it too much. It’s the role of Sylvia Likens in “An American Crime,” a DVD-only movie here, and Page made it when he was 19, right before “Juno.” ‘An American Crime’ tells a true crime story, a crime that took place in 1965.

An Illinois mother of six takes in two girls and, with the help of her children, tortures the older girl to death. Forces him to repeatedly rape himself with a coke bottle. Locked up in the basement, beaten up, starved to death, scratched the stomach with a red-hot needle “I’m a prostitute and proud of it”. Let others look at her naked, abused body for a fee. A film that will make you want to cry, scream and vomit all the time. And wonders how someone as young as Page could survive this.

The answer is: bad. Page internalizes the role. Recalls Sylvia’s ordeal in detail: “Sylvia held the concrete floor in pain until her fingertips were a bloody mass, bit her lip frantically, biting through the pain. When her body was found, it turned out to have two mouths.” Eats almost nothing. Wants to punish himself with the inhuman hunger Sylvia suffered. He tries to escape from the body he hates so much.

The only thing that keeps Page alive is the prospect of Juno. He really wants the role, but first he has to learn how to eat again. Has panic attacks when trying to bite into a sandwich, can’t swallow and eventually succeeds through sheer force of will, always with the goal of “Juno” in mind. Diablo Codi’s script is too great.

Elliot started acting at the age of ten, at the age of eleven he landed his first major serial role back home in Canada and also his first stalker. It’s a classic: a young adult texts a kid how interesting and wonderful he thinks he is, he’s flattered and trusts him, especially as Elliot feels the first waves of self-loathing about his gender dysphoria and gives in to suicidal thoughts. That’s where the nice stranger comes in. It wasn’t until Page was sixteen that he came out with disgusting sexual fantasies. Page gets a restraining order.

There are always men in Elliot’s life that he is attracted to, but mostly women. His entry into Hollywood is reminiscent of earlier decades, the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, when gay actors often had heterosexual facade marriages that were only there to create one’s public image so that the other mainstream audience could keep their desired stars. Privately, most of them lived what they wanted to live.

So does Eliot Page. He must ostensibly embody the sweet girl with wavy hair and big makeup eyes in high heels. A horror. His hated drag performance. His worst idea is to have to do a costume drama, wearing corsets, crinolines, and many layers of women’s clothing; he would never agree to such a project. In his private life, he tries to train himself to be a hard body, as androgynous as possible, with limited success.

In private, he continues to dress like Elliot from “ET” and has his business. With Olivia Thirlby starring in “Juno,” it’s a wonder they’re both allowed to film at all. With Kate Mara and dozens of other women, Elliot’s heartbreak must be huge, amazing how little of it went public.

The happiness is short-lived, the insecurity in his own body is too great, he loves women more than anything, but he cannot accept himself as a woman. When he passes a window or a mirror, he feels schizophrenic, the creature in the glass is a stranger that he does not feel that way.

2014, at the age of 26, when the first coming out. As a lesbian. Quasi stage victory of the liberation, a partial relief, because at least Page now dares to come out with his girlfriends. Half the game of hide and seek is over. Hostilities are great, well-known actors insult him, the saying that every lesbian hears at least once in his life, that they just need to be well fucked by a man, is still said today.

“Pageboy” is a tale of woe. Are many love stories. Is a life story. And a survival story. Because during the pandemic, Elliot decides to have a gender reassignment. Until the surgery, until the hormone therapy, until the door to the old life completely pops off its hinges. Or that it is finally hung properly. Finally open to new life. towards real life.

Ironically, Jordan Peterson, the guru of men who want to cling to an old manhood, tweeted: “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal doctor.” (Remember when Pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal doctor.)

Elliot’s father really likes Peterson’s tweet. Finally Elliot knows where he is with him. The mother reacts very differently (the parents have been divorced for decades): With the redemption of the son, she too can finally free herself against her better judgment from all the expectations she had. Mother and son are very happy together today.

Elliot Page is 36 years old today and wrote his book without a ghostwriter. An insane performance. Because ‘Pageboy’ is fantastic: honest, moving, poetic, touching, brutal, a raging road movie through a very young life, captivating, a Hollywood saga – and a sad declaration of love to Ellen, which he has finally been able to make. Like one of his old suits.

Elliot Page’s “Pageboy” is available in English at this link. And below this one in German.