we found this documentary on Netflix, I'd heard about Lauren's transition. I did not expect to be confronted with such a mocking and withered attack on an eccentric British family.I felt like the entire family where on trial the entire documentary.This whole documentary is an assignation on a collection of people.The constant pauses and attempts to trap the the person in front of the camera, the awful organ music.What an utter mess.Watching stuff like this makes me realize and determine to produce good documentaries about interesting and unusual people.Is this the dribble that was on TV 12 years ago?

the more I think about it the more I loathe the performance of the presenter in this doc, who feels that 1 we need him to think for us, 2 we need him to overreact for, well, if not us, for such as the good folk living near LLF who periodically throw bricks through the windows of her family home, 3 entertains some exalted deluded notion of himself being "not hip" which is of course to say überhip. For at the end of the film he's not made enough of an ass of himself not to append a wild and crazy ironic karaoke realness coda not quite - a desperate attempt to be hip. There is of course the same point to dive home: no matter how he might degrade himself yet he can hold himself above LFF and family. Unnecessary in this film, to say the least. Such material might be usable in an funeral or graveside "living cemetery" type setting, as only a mother or other lover could glean anything of redeeming value therefrom. I'm sure Lilly Allen - whatever that means - would be tickled!(You see I'm uberuberuberhip I only know she's a chick who dated Russel Brand I'm so above it all).Now matter how much Mr. Sluggo would like to convince LFF she's good for nothing, it's quite clear she's a gifted performer playing herself on television and has been since she was a he knee high to a bee. So what if she can't sing. Do you imagine Madonna can? Of course it's not that the singing ability is missing that bothers Lilly daddy. In his estimate a real "genius" would undoubtedly serve up a certifiably ironic "I can't sing and I luuuuuuuv it I'm so far beyond hip hear me roar" take on the not being able to sing thing. After all it's right out of the play book from which 9/10ths of movie and TV scripts have been written from the earliest days of the brat pack (whoever they are lol I don't know honestly! just the expresion). Fauntelroy family is forthcoming about their deep dark secrets, about their charlatanism of the past, at least. Amusing that the presenter feels it's so ironic that the book on 3rd eye astral traveling was written by a FAKE psychic/guru rather than a BONA FIDE genuine for realz out of body specialist. What an ass! The perfect antidote to the strong and miserably stodgy POV of this doc is a passage from Salman Rushdie's "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" about outsiders/ con-men / criminal / outlaw types and why they appeal to us, how our fiction in all modes is so often centered around such characters, permitting us at least a sort of dream experience of what might not be dared in day to day life.The chancy counseling given to presenter by star actually sounded like not such bad advice. I guess presenter hasn't a clue how many counselors and therapists are loonier than their clients.OK I guess I'm done time to go do something else now beside BBB.

Having grown up with little slices of child-freak James Harries making it all the way the Australia, i was damn excited about a documentary. this incredibly interesting subject of a person so desperate for media attention they have become a fake child prodigy to hideous transsexual. it also delves into the Harries family ...a weird weird family.Most of these opportunities are wasted and washed over by Keith Allen making himself the star of the documentarymaybe we are spoiled with Louis Theroux and how he coaxes people into revealing themselves, but we watch documentaries for the subject, not the aggressive irritating smug host

The Harries family are shoddily treated in this film. They don't have great gifts but they are likable enough and Lauren (formerly odd little prodigy James Harries) has had to be tough to deal with others' ignorance - as many people who have had a sex change do. There is an increasing trend in television to humiliate and deceive participants in documentaries and reality shows. Is it the modern-day equivalent of throwing Christians to the lions?The Harries emerge from this film content in their eccentricity and should be respected for that. Presenter, Keith Allen, on the other hand appears narrow-minded and aggressive.