Leitis in Waiting (2018)
There's a particular image of Polynesian culture that documentaries and films have spent years carefully constructing, and I'll be honest, I've largely bought into it. Films like Kumu Hina painted a genuinely beautiful picture of a society where transgender individuals aren't merely tolerated but woven into the very fabric of the culture. It's a warming, hopeful vision. And then Leitis in Waiting arrives and pulls the rug clean out from under you.
Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu and Joe Wilson's 2018 documentary drops us into the Kingdom of Tonga, and what we find there is a world away from that utopian ideal. The Leitis, the local transgender community, face relentless, grinding persecution, much of it driven by powerful religious figures who have cemented a deeply conservative social order. The film doesn't ease you in gently. It's a sobering confrontation with a reality that gets conveniently smoothed over when the wider world talks about Polynesian progressiveness.
What the film is really chronicling is a reclamation. The word "Fakaleitis" was originally thrown at this community as a slur, and watching them systematically own it, flip it, and transform it into something proud and self-defined is genuinely stirring stuff. I'm fully behind anyone choosing to live on their own terms, provided they're not hurting anyone else, and these individuals do so with a fierce, unapologetic energy that's impossible not to admire. There's a quiet dignity to the people on screen that hooks you almost immediately. They are, bluntly, cracking company.
That's actually what keeps the film afloat, because if I'm being honest, the filmmaking itself is a bit average. Wong-Kalu and Wilson haven't exactly pushed the form anywhere new here. The pacing drags in places, the structural choices feel safe and conventional, and there's a flatness to the visual storytelling that a subject this rich probably deserves better than. A truly top-tier piece of non-fiction would have found ways to match the emotional weight of its content with something more formally inventive. This doesn't quite get there.
But here's the thing: when the people you're watching are this compelling, and when the stakes around their daily survival and right to self-expression are this immediate and real, adequate filmmaking can still produce a deeply engaging experience. The content does the heavy lifting. The sheer courage it takes for these individuals to exist loudly and proudly in an environment actively working against them is more than enough to carry you through the slower stretches. You end up forgiving the technical shortcomings because the film earns its keep through what it's actually saying.
This is a picture that matters far more for what it says than how it says it. It's an eye-opening corrective to a comfortable narrative, anchored by a group of incredibly charismatic people whose resilience and warmth stay with you well after the credits roll. I stood with the Leitis throughout, thoroughly caught up in their journey even when the camera work wasn't doing them full justice.
Three and a half stars. A genuinely important watch, even if it falls a little short of the documentary it could have been.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2018 | Watched: 2026-07-20
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