The ‘White Lotus’ actress and ‘Girls’ creator star alongside Cole Sprouse and Corey Fogelmanis in an adaptation of Mason Deaver’s YA novel of the same name.

When Ben DeBacker (Corey Fogelmanis), the nonbinary protagonist of Tommy Dorfman’s charming directorial debut I Wish You All the Best, decides to come out to their parents, the results are disastrous.

Premiering at SXSW, I Wish You All the Best follows Ben as they recover from the emotional trauma of coming out to their parents and adjust to a new life with their sister and her husband (Cole Sprouse). Dorfman wrote the screenplay, which she adapted from the non-binary author Mason Deaver’s bestselling novel of the same name. I Wish You All the Best is a heartfelt ode to the experiences of nonbinary teens that doesn’t only prioritize the most disturbing experiences. It has the tenor of a show like Netflix’s Heartstopper and offers enough charm — much like Josephine Decker’s musical romance The Sky Is Everywhere — to overcome the clunkier parts of its portrait of adolescence. 

Although Fogelmanis, Daddario and Sprouse give solid individual performances, the dynamics of their family relationship rarely overcomes a certain stiffness. Part of that has to do with the film’s uneven pacing. In trying to cover so much ground, Dorfman doesn’t leave enough time for the relationships to play out fully on screen. The result, at times, tends toward the staccato rhythms and sentimentality of primetime television shows like This Is Us. 

Ben’s experiences at school and their relationships with an eccentric art teacher (a scene-stealing Lena Dunham) and their crush Nathan (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) make for a welcome change in tone and direction. At their previous high school, Ben tried to be invisible, but that proves more difficult in this new town where people take a genuine interest in the teenager. Nathan, an extroverted bisexual who coordinates their nail color with their outfits, folds Ben into his friend group immediately. The matter of why Nathan is drawn to Ben could have used more exploration, but Fogelmanis and Gutierrez-Riley have a sweet chemistry that saves their relationship from contrivance. As Nathan and Ben get closer, Dorfman takes their intimacy seriously, staging scenes that recognize the depth and reality of these characters’ desires. 

When not daydreaming about Nathan, Ben spends a lot of time with Ms. Lyons. Dunham is pitch-perfect in this role, as though she was born to be the eccentric art teacher who shepherds the shy, the anxious and the self-proclaimed misfits to self-acceptance. The Sharp Stick director steals nearly all the scenes she’s featured in by deploying her signature anxious-spiral-as-confessional-humor. She also shapes her character into someone with real heart, an administrator who recognizes Ben’s gender limbo without condescending to the teen.