Compared to most sequels, Castration Movie, Part II (2025), subtitled The Best of Both Worlds, is one of the most daunting features ever put out for public consumption. Almost every person who has seen it has prefaced their review by saying that a five-hour running time is intimidating, especially given that it’s even longer than the already epic Castration Movie, Part I (2024), which found director Louise Weard creating one of the most thorough and unrepentant portraits of contemporary trans life put to screen. Even for someone like myself who would call myself a fan, it was overlong and sporadic, feeling at times like aimless vignettes whose only value was that they presented a perspective not often seen on film before, let alone in such raw and vulnerable terms. Given that the current Letterboxd poster for The Best of Both Worlds features a cartoon woman with a gun to her head, it’s easy to think that what follows will put Lars Von Trier’s torturous epics to shame on a fraction of the budget.
It’s not easy to admit, but the first entry could at least be accused of having a formalism to constrain its abounding imagination. By comparison, Weard has jumped off the deep end and basically leaned into everything that could possibly be done to tell an independent story as realistically as possible. Don’t believe me? This isn’t just some marketing ploy to make it feel special. This is a story that indulges to the point it gets bloated, dizzy, and vomits up its own grotesque creation. How could a film that opens with a 10-minute orgy scene of trans girls in various states of dress, high on ketamine, not feel a little bit surreal? Without giving too much away, it’s only more vulgar from there, leading to one of the most perfectly heartbreaking final hours of filmmaking in recent years.
At first, the very idea of sustaining this story for five hours may seem torturous unto itself. For many, it’s a noticeable markdown from the inductive entry. However, something is charming about the effort that keeps me locked in, able to look past any shortcomings and see a world that’s as flawed as its execution, trying to find a beauty beyond its ugly style. Given how much of this film is mired in poor camera framing and audio mixing, it’s a miracle that this still contains the spontaneity necessary to not grow bored. The camera this time around seems to have formed a severe case of ADHD as it jumps from character to character, taking in conversations, including some that are the next party over, and attempting to make sense of this world that has been riddled with harmful online rhetoric and characters whose worldviews are beyond the pale.
At the center of this is the biggest savior of this piece. Circle (Alexandria Walton) is a trans woman in a trans exclusionist cult. It is quickly revealed that the limited locations aren’t a shortcoming of any scouting agent, but more the fact that these women are trapped in a basement, eating nothing but hot dogs and doing yoga. The intensity is sustained for almost two hours before the real story starts, capturing the claustrophobia of women slowly losing their minds and health to have some sense of community. Even still, they are forced to look at feel-good slogans and praise a face on a screen who may or may not even be real. There’s a feeling that these characters are trapped, forced into a love commune that slowly loses its sweetness as the routines become clearer.
Circle is the girl who wants to leave. As the rhetoric becomes monotonous, she craves a world with more stimulation and honesty, realizing how detached she is from any sense of reality. Even with music nights and constant reassurance, this world is a nightmare. As with Weard’s larger universe so far, it can’t help but be informed by the reality of trans women, especially those who are ostracized and forced into poor housing conditions. At some point, desperation will win over, and that’s what The Best of Both Worlds symbolizes even as it pushes further and further into discomfort, all made worse by the floating camera and growing sense of degradation towards Circle’s humanity.
Maybe the film could feel cheap because of how much it leans into shock. Much like with Castration Movie Part I, there is a scene that exists for no other reason than to dehumanize a clocky tran girl, the one who cannot pass once all of her secrets are revealed. While both have their unique awfulness, this one feels worse because of how it’s used against Circle by the snarky, mean-spirited former non-binary detransitioner Keller (Ivy Wok). Because of one horrendous argument, Keller finds strangers asking if Circle looks like a boy or a girl. What should be a quick A or B situation, even in a worst-case scenario, turns into this ongoing turn of the gut, the reveling in humiliation that grows more sickening as Keller pulls Circle’s hair up, revealing all of the facial insecurities. She can’t accept the polite answer. She needs Circle to know who she’s dealing with. If that’s not enough, they are a couple of minutes off from another heartbreaking conversation with a former trans girl who also couldn’t pass. They aren’t any happier as a man, but it’s a sense of complacency that overrides the regret, forcing Circle to consider what the alternative to the cult is.
There is a world where Castration Movie Part II would tell a satisfying enough story in two hours. I’d argue that, unlike the first one, it earns every minute of its running time here by forcing the audience to contemplate the discomfort and inescapability of the situation. In one of the more jarring scenes, Weard shoots a split-screen at a party that shows how one friend abandoned Circle for several minutes to talk to Keller, who is just as vicious in her gender studies rhetoric as one would think. In what’s either a masterstroke or the last straw, this scene goes on for almost a half-hour, largely uncut, without any centralized audio. Instead, it’s the sound of a party where hundreds of voices are talking. Even Keller’s is at times impossible to comprehend, making one wonder what the point of this is except to rub it in that the pain is interminable, that there’s no convenient way to show the social ostracization except to sit in those minutes and speculate when things will get better.
As a narrative film, Castration Movie Part II is arguably a more succinct work of fiction. Whereas there are more memorable moments to crib from in the original, the ability to dig into multiple characters while jumping around a room of gossip allows for a sense of chess to be formed, which helps to break any monolithic sensibility on display in the first. Instead, this is a story about how the abuse impacts everyone differently. Even if it centers on Circle for long stretches, the audience forms sympathy for the rest, realizing how gross their situation is by proxy.
Despite any push towards niceties that many would favor, Weard’s choice to lean into the profane also allows for conversations to be had that are less marketable to general audiences. It’s unlikely that this five-hour opus will have a Fathom Event (or at least one well attended). Because of this, there’s a constant sense of risk. Keller may be an offensively manipulative character, but there’s a larger embodiment of concern around her. It’s a story unafraid to deal with suicidal ideation, self-harm, body image issues, and everything that goes against a fantasy of the perfect doll. Every character has one or two reprehensible traits, and yet Weard’s compassion for them allows for a greater understanding of how flawed the media of virtue can be towards trans women. In fact, the man who opens the film just got through a State of the Union in 2026 talking about eradicating the trans identity. There’s a lot of reason to self-hate, and this creates a cathartic space for the abyss to break through and have its say.
As mentioned, the final hour is one of the best crafted of the year. While it depends on one’s enjoyment of everything leading up to it, the intensity ratchets everything up to an alarming degree that definitely earns the word “traumatic” both as a physical act and as an emotional one. Despite the escalation, the final half-hour especially quiets down into a painful self-reflection that may not be the happy ending people want, but reflects Weard’s goal of making epic misery porn for the trans community. On the one hand, it’s breaking down walls and exposing audiences to the potential of the discourse. However, it’s doing so in ways that are less palatable than Vera Drew’s chaotic The People’s Joker (2024), meaning that it’s as much a lesson in language as it is an endurance test. Your willingness to play along will determine whether that’s a good or bad thing.
For this reviewer, it achieves one of the most uncompromising, immersive experiences that any film has offered. While a magnificently flawed work of art that reaches many tedious plateaus, it manages to capture a conversation and distill it into the here and now. Even if most of these characters feel specific to New York archetypes, there’s still enough to suggest that this hostility exists elsewhere, both for the slurs being lobbed at these girls and the limited options for a safe, happy life. While I am sure that Weard personally believes in the community supporting each other, this cautionary tale works as a way to keep the worst from happening again. It may feel too real to the point of questioning certain actors’ safety, but that’s part of the thrill of Castration Movie as a series. These are the women living on the fringes of society, looking for any way to feel normal. It’s doubtful that the third entry will get us there, but after the ambitious swing that was the second, I am very curious to see where things wind up.
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