Tim Travers Hawkins’ XY Chelsea focuses on whistle-blower Chelsea Manning, initially imprisoned for 35 years in 2010, as her sentence is commuted and she attempts to integrate back into society, all the while trying to re-establish her own identity as a trans woman.

It’s pleasantly surprising to see just how ‘up close and personal’ Hawkins is able to get to Manning. He has unrivalled access and the interviews with his subject are frequent, so it’s all the more disappointing to see it amount to very little. 

The film is sadly very imbalanced, with Hawkins devoting the majority of the film’s run-time to the elements surrounding Manning’s identity, at the expense of venturing into greater detail with regards to the leaks that first brought her to the public eye.

This is not to say that Manning’s gender identity is not interesting. Quite the opposite, in fact. The issue isn’t an absence of intrigue, but rather the lack of depth you can go into with the subject when Manning herself is still figuring out who she is. 

At 92 minutes, Hawkins has plenty of time to tackle the two most fascinating aspects of Manning’s life: the leaks and her gender identity. Sadly, so much time is spent with Manning discussing one, that we never delve into much detail with the other. 

It’s clear that XY Chelsea is not intended as a political documentary, but rather a character study of someone who risked everything to do what she felt was right. However, it is genuinely surprising just how little detail we explore. The film does not need to risk becoming a politically-charged documentary simply to inform the audience why we should care about Manning in the first place, and yet it’s likely most people will finish the film having learned little more about what she did than they already knew and, like it or not, that’s a problem. 

The film absolutely needs to discuss Manning’s gender, but not at the expense of other significant aspects of her story, and it sadly brushes over so many other details that it stops being overly informative and simply winds up feeling rather slow.

This is not to say that the film doesn’t have its strong moments. Manning’s discussions around her identity and her time in prison are very open and personal, and the archival footage (when shown) is genuinely shocking and thought-provoking. Hawkins does pose questions for his audience to ponder, and one of the strongest sequences in the picture involves Manning being interviewed by The New York Times, in which we see just how passionately Manning felt about what she saw and what she did. 

Sadly, the film overall feels very wasteful with an otherwise fascinating story. Unlike Citizenfour, in which we come away with a far greater understanding of Edward Snowden’s actions, XY Chelsea isn’t as successful in that regard. We learn very little in terms of detail, all in service of an aspect of Manning’s personality which can only be delved into so much in and of itself. Given the fact that Manning doesn’t even fully know herself yet, the film sadly winds up feeling a little inconclusive.

XY Chelsea feels like a brief summary of Chelsea Manning’s life so far, that’s open to further research and interpretation, with plenty to still be told. She is a fascinating individual but the film does not do her justice, opting for a very superficial study of a person who is anything but. 

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