Movie Review - The Way You Look Tonight (2020)
by Emily
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Country: United States
Language: English
Type of story: Shapeshifter
Is the protagonist Transgender? No.
Sexuality: Doesn’t change
Nudity: No
How I watched it: Roku Channel (Watch here)
When I last watched it: December 28, 2025
This one isn’t our typical TF/TG movie. First, the main protagonist isn’t the one undergoing a transformation. Second, the transformation is a daily natural occurrence. Much like Every Day, except this isn’t a body swap. Heloise is transforming into a new person each time she wakes up.
It’s still worth a review because it has a lot of transgender themes associated with it; making it a much more thought-provoking movie than many of the other movies I’ve reviewed over the past year.
My synopsis (spoiler-free): Peter (Nick Fink) is single and meets this great girl on a dating website. They hit it off that night, but in the morning, she’s gone. Trying to get her out of his mind, he goes on more and more dates. But they all seem to have something in common.
Trigger Warning: This movie does include self-harm.
* * Spoilers ahead * *
Peter’s first date is Ellie (Bailey Noble). She is followed by Lois (Kimia Behpoornia), but they don’t go home together, which angers Lois. The next week, Peter invites Elise (Maliabeth Johnson) over and they have yet another one night stand. He laments that each of his dates has been wearing the same green hoodie. On the fourth date, he goes over to Heloise’s (Emily Tremaine) place. They don’t have sex, but Peter spends the night. When he wakes up, a new girl (Stefanie Black) claiming to be Heloise is there. She explains that she’s a Changeling and every time she falls asleep, she transforms into a different person. She was Ellie, Lois, and Elise as well. We follow Peter as he learns about this new class of people and learns how to love someone whose physical form is always changing.
The Transformation:
Heloise’s transformation is only shown once. She recorded it for Peter to see. It’s just a generic CGI morph. Nothing to really see here.
Sexuality: Once Peter starts accepting that Heloise is a Changeling, and they start dating, he is totally taken by surprise when he wakes up cuddling a guy. Surprise! Changelings can also change gender! As it is described, how often a Changeling spends in a gender is fluid depending on the person. For Heloise, she calls it, “that time of the month.”
At first, Peter is disgusted. But then he realizes he’s overreacting, and continues to date Heloise— just without the intimacy when she’s in a male body. Eventually after months of dating, Peter gets comfortable with Heloise-as-a-guy and they attempt more intimacy - eventually trying sex. Peter isn’t entirely comfortable with this, but based on the ending of the movie, it appears that Peter can see beyond the physical form and just see the person he loves.
Gender: The whole movie is a parable to the struggles of LGBTQ people.
In this fictional universe, Changelings just “came out of the closet.” They’re fighting for equal rights. Things like birth certificates and passports. Changelings have support groups where they talk about their struggles with society.
When Peter invites Heloise to read a book she has written to his kindergarten class, she is physically a nonbinary person (Andi René Christensen). One of the kids asks her if she’s a boy or a girl. She replies, “I believe I’m a girl.” And the kids accept that easily. “OK.” See how easy that is? Society, I’m looking at you.
Peter’s reaction to the fact that Heloise is sometimes a guy is similar to cis guy’s reaction to learning that a woman he’s dating is trans. Trans panic. He’s angry. He claims she lied.
Peter, Heloise, and Peter’s roommates watch Changelings protest on TV.
Heloise also laments that she can never have children.
How it ends: Peter is ready to take the relationship to the next level. He wants to introduce Heloise to his parents and grandmother. Heloise is eager— until she falls asleep and wakes up as a bearded, overweight male. She’s embarrassed. Then she hurts herself. Peter is forgiving and tries to comfort her. When Peter wakes up, Heloise has run off.
Peter goes to her father’s house looking for her. He finds her as a middle-aged man, presumably her father. He realizes that the man is actually Heloise, meaning he finally sees her. He confronts her and tells her that none of the childhood trauma she went through is her fault. They reconcile and he eventually brings her to his parents house - as is.
While Peter’s parents are taken aback at Peter's girlfriend being a middle-aged man, his grandmother doesn’t care and welcomes Heloise with open arms.
Random Thoughts:
According to the lore of this universe, Changelings are subject to body alterations including age, race, gender, and mass. We saw Heloise change all of those. She even recounted times in her childhood when she’d gone from a kid to an adult.
Peter isn’t aware of Changelings at first. In fact, he’s been taking his dates to a known Changeling bar, Leshy’s, where the owner and bartender are Changelings and Peter will unknowingly at first meet both of them multiple times.
Date #2 doesn’t go as well for Peter and Heloise as opposed to Date #1 where Peter and Ellie had a one-night-stand. Heloise thinks it's because she’s currently “Lois” and she has brown skin. Peter denies it, of course, and it is worth noting that Date #2 is on a Sunday night and Peter correctly specifies he has to get up early tomorrow for work.
Date #3 is surprisingly at Peter’s place. Not sure why he’s cooking dinner for a first date. They quickly have sex, making me wonder - did they even eat the dinner Peter cooked?
Date #4 is at Heloise’s place. Again, a first date at a person’s place.
Peter’s roommate, Jackson (Shane Coffey), is the first one to realize that Peter’s dates are likely the same Changeling. Jackson shares his theory with their other roommate, Peter’s sister, Mia (Juliette Goglia). When Peter comes home from Date #4 where he learned the truth, Jackson and Mia are eagerly waiting to see Peter’s reaction.
After #4, Peter visits Heloise again, and this time he drives her to a meeting of her Changeling support group. There he meets several other Changelings, including Leshy and the bartender, both of whom he had met previously. Each Changeling has a “habit”, or rather an item that identifies them, since every other physical trait is fluid. Heloise’s habit is the green hoodie. Peter learns some of the hardships Changelings face - inability to get official IDs, credit cards, and leave the country.
I love that everyone around Peter is a progressive ally. Jackson and Mia are very accepting of him dating a Changeling. Even his grandmother is cool with Heloise. There are no real regressive people - except Peter himself who’s character arc takes him from unaware cis hetero guy, to full acceptance and ally.
I wanted to list out every version of Heloise we see, but even IMDB doesn’t list them all.
Overall impression:
It's certainly an interesting movie. An example of what makes science fiction great. Taking some crazy premise such as shapeshifting and turning it into a LGBTQ allegory. The film uses the Changeling concept to explore the unfair emotional burden placed on the marginalized person to manage the cis person's reality.
Elron
Already liking the soundtrack, right from the get-go.
Is that really how dating sites work? That fast?
I have so much respect for kindergarten teachers.
I guess Peter could tell the first woman wasn’t his date, but I wonder what would have happened if he had hooked up with her instead…….
The whiskey is so…brown. Reminds me of a certain ST:TNG episode. “It is…green.”
I grew up calling it ga-notchie. Just to annoy my sister.
So, Peter wakes up and Ellie is gone, along with all traces of her on the dating app. This is starting to remind me of Lyra’s story.
OK, Lois just started drinking whiskey, wears a green hoodie, and is using Peter’s lines. Even I figured out that Lois used to be Ellie.
I want to say Lois was a little presumptuous about the evening, but Peter did sleep with Ellie on the first date.
I think if you are at 98%, it’s worth a try - even without a profile pic. What is there to lose?
“Elise,” green hoodie, “early start tomorrow,” and mind-blowing “familiar” revenge sex. I guess she showed him!
This movie seems a little shallow - even for me. I’m expecting more. Something in the realm of The Time Traveler’s Wife. But, it’s still early. We’ll see.
Peter’s roommate (Jackson) is hiding something.
Hmm, even Heloise’s front door is green.
“Freelance advertising material.” No, dear, I wasn’t looking at porn. It was, um, freelance advertising material. Yeah, that’s it!
Peter and Heloise really do seem to have a connection.
Yeah, this is really turning into Lyra’s story.
I like the way they are playing out this scene. Their reactions seem genuine.
Heloise seems very surprised Peter doesn’t know Changelings are real. I think that’s expecting too much of Peter, or anyone else for that matter.
I don’t think Heloise technically lied to Peter. Lying by omission isn’t the same as telling a bold-face lie.
I think Peter is getting too hung up on shape-shifting. He should just embrace it.
OK, I’m glad he seems to be warming up to all this. Driving Heloise to her group meeting. That’s a big step.
And they have food!
So the green hoodie is called a habit.
I didn’t catch the narcolepsy reference at first. But if you change every time you nod off that would really suck.
Peter really blew it after driving Heloise home from her meeting. I thought he had made great strides in accepting that Changelings exist, and that they are just people who wake up each time looking different. Not really too much different than if they wore a wig, makeup, prosthetics, etc. They are still the same inside.
The book! Maybe Peter can redeem himself. Yup!
Every class has to have an Amy LOL
Kids are so refreshingly pure of heart. Boy or girl? Who cares!
Peter, you better put your arms around Heloise and never let her go. There are keepers, and then there are KEEPERS!
Who needs keys when your front door is never locked?
I thought Peter woke up next to a poodle, but it was just Heloise with a lot of curly hair.
I think Heloise owes it to Peter to come clean about all the aspects of being a Changeling - before those aspects come into play. That’s only fair.
Seems like Heloise might have some repeated bodies, and some new unrecognizable bodies. Like the Asian girl brushing her teeth. Seems to be a new body.
And how often do the changes take place? Every night? Any/every sleep session, including naps? (Apparently.)
Seems like Changelings would have to remain a woman long enough to have babies, or else they would all die out eventually.
We saw a post-menopausal Heloise, but not a younger Heloise. Pre-teen, for example. Just for the movie rating, or a restricted age range? The rules have not exactly been forthcoming.
“Selma can go fuck herself.” Yup.
So did Peter know he was talking to Heloise, or did he think that was her father?
I loved the look on Peter’s parents when they met Heloise for the first time. Did they know ahead of time that Heloise was a Changeling?
Mawmaw isn’t just mythical - she’s a saint.
That was a sweet movie.
So, overall, I thought it was a very creative and refreshing movie. The pacing was just right. The writing was a little lacking for my tastes. I wanted Heloise to tell Peter the rules - before they came into play. I think that’s fair. If Peter turned into a werewolf, or werewoman, every full moon I’d want him to come clean with Heloise before it happens the first time.
I thought the reactions everyone had to Heloise’s secret were portrayed realistically.
I think there needs to be a distinction between being a Shape-Shifter and being a Changeling. Shape-Shifters can control their appearance, including timing. Changelings can not. They are at the whim of the universe, and that makes what Changelings have is a curse.
I think this movie could have a relevant sequel - Heloise gets pregnant and has a Changeling baby. Peter and Heloise face discrimination in housing, schools, jobs as the right wing whackos turn on this new group of marginalized people.
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