Sorry You Have to Deal with Me
Grief and Jonni Phillips
“I feel like I’m losing my son,” was the last thing my dad said to me this past Christmas. It’s a common experience for trans people, I think, a loved one insisting that we’ve disappeared.
The feeling was mutual that night. As he cornered me in my apartment, furious at my need for space, I failed to recognize my dad in his transphobia, his distrust and condescension. I hadn’t imagined I would spend Christmas night blocking my parent’s phone numbers, but transitioning is full of surprises.
Since the December split, I’ve spent five months reckoning with the loss of my family of origin, grieving for a collection of people who still live, breathe, and post on Facebook. To hold my love for them in tandem with the pain they’ve caused me, as well as I them, has felt near impossible. I’ve often turned to Jonni Phillips, an independent animated filmmaker whose work provided comfort in times of despair, yet still challenged me to embrace change.
Secrets and Lies in a Town of Sinners is one such project, an online series animated entirely by Phillips and scored by singer-songwriter Dylan Kanner. Each episode tracks the chaotic breakdown of the fictional Desalmado, California, as its residents uncover vast conspiracies, process the mundanity of heartbreak, and watch TV.
The series kicked off in early January, continuing through the coronavirus pandemic with the final episode released this past Sunday. It’s existed as a weird constant in my life, accompanying me from the aftermath of a familial breakdown to the slow burn of a quarantine lacking lesbian intimacy. I find moments of Secrets and Lies inhabiting me, its scenes of quiet heartbreak playing in my mind through the tedium of grilled cheese and scrolling Twitter.
It’s difficult to pin down how Phillips infuses her work with such intoxicating gravity. The series’ third episode feels like a prime example, an exercise in autonomy and a lament for relationships that end because they must. It maps Desalmado teenager Farely’s escape from a home struggling with intense depression, his departure granted through an admissions letter to the fictional Harveland University.
Farely’s father, Countil, is a distant widower voiced by Harrison Wyrick, who manages to make Countil sound apologetic and downtrodden even when suggesting takeout for dinner. Like most of Phillips’ works, Secrets and Lies demonstrates almost unbelievably naturalistic voice acting, its every line spoken with a measured patience packed with idiosyncrasies. Jake Ryan captures Farely’s spirit of teenage exhaustion with an anxious cadence, littering his lines with voice cracks and hesitant pauses during the revelation of Farely’s acceptance letter.
At the news of his son’s admission, Countil’s pride in the achievement deflates to grief in a matter of seconds. “I’m happy for you, I’m genuinely very happy for you. I wish I could stay happy for you for longer,” says Countil, the moment framed with a continuous shot of the widower’s shifting eyes, searching for some bridge between celebration and mourning. “I’m sorry you have to deal with me.”
I’ve had this conversation before, struggled to find the words that come next. My mom would ask me if she’d been a bad parent, if my transition was her fault, if there was any way to stop the collapse of her love. The last few times I called my grandparents, whether for an 80th birthday or spontaneous check-in, my otherwise steely grandfather would choke back tears, letting me know that he loved me and didn’t want to lose me. As Countil breaks down, consumed by grief, Farely simply apologizes. It’s all I could do too, patching their hurt while concealing my own.
The episode ends with Kanner’s “Hollywood, Florida” over Countil and Farely’s goodbyes, the singer’s soft voice welling to passionate cries of “a southern town tunnel dream / head-down nuclear family / that’s fraying at the seams” with melodies heavy like distant thunder. Farely waves from the platform of a blimp, his father seated in the car, both reluctant for the moment to pass.
This is where I fall in love with Phillips’ animation. Every setting, every character seems at once molded from a vibrant putty yet still elastic enough for the spectrum of emotion she delivers beat-by-beat. Her kinetic style often shines in moments of surreal comedy or frenetic anxiety, but it’s here, at its gentlest, that Phillips brings me to tears. The absurdity of the blimp, Farely’s oversized form, the simple shapes of everything far away and small, it feels like a diorama for the heartbreak of being alive.
There’s no uplifting final note, no monologue to foster the lost relationship. Farely ends up alone at the edge of a dock, hair tousled in an oceanside squall, facing emptiness. Countil sits at home, head bowed as Kanner sings “man, I understand that we’ll never understand each other.” Phillips’ closing shot lingers on Desalmado, the boxy neighborhoods and wobbly forms of cars on the freeway. The quiet rush of traffic replaces all sound, and the episode cuts to credits.
I picture my mother in St. Louis, composing the emails she sends me near-monthly, calls to reconnect that I still cannot meet. Her dad died when she was in her late twenties, a grief that surrounded our apartment as I was taking baby steps. Our relationship seemed to heal that wound, provide refuge for the both of us when the pain of living became too much.
This year, the distance between my family and I has led to unimaginable joys, but the mourning is never any less devastating. I appreciate Phillips’ honest approach to deliberate loss, the uncertainty and stillness that follows, and the life we’re left to salvage.
Secrets and Lies has shown me how to sit with my pain, how to hold the memories of people I may never see again. I see myself in Desalmado, an anxious trans girl processing trauma in a cartoon present. I’m grateful Phillips let me in.