‘Jimpa’ Review: In Search of a Queer Education
A review in Nytimes notes the title of Sophie Hyde’s “Jimpa” is a portmanteau: the traditional nickname sounded too old to Jim (John Lithgow), a gay professor living in Amsterdam. When Jim’s nonbinary grandchild Francis (Aud Mason-Hyde) pays Jim a visit, they call him “Jimpa,” and he calls Francis his “grandthing.” Francis is a diffident 16-year-old, an L.G.B.T.Q.
club president in Adelaide, Australia, unusually attached to their mother, Hannah (Olivia Colman), a filmmaker; the pair often bathes together. At the start of the film Francis tells their parents they plan to move in with Jimpa in Amsterdam, believing a queer education awaits, and Hannah, who still feels the sting of being left behind by Jim decades earlier, is hesitant to let Francis go.
Hyde based the story on her own experiences and cast her child as a lead.
Australia, Adelaide, Amsterdam