This was a very touching film. Joe/Joanne was a very pitiful character; she deserved much more sympathy/respect/kindness than she actually got in the movie. I lost track of how many times during the movie I said to myself, "I wish I could hug Joe/Joanne." It was great to see Joe/Joanne find an out for her troubles at the circus by virtue of her friendship to Chris; it was also great for Chris to transform from timid to brave by virtue of this friendship. This was a very special bond between the two, courtesy of the bracelets they exchanged as a symbol of their friendship. This bond wasn't even broken by Joe revealing her true gender (and name) to Chris. Also, thanks to his newly acquired audacity, Chris managed to track down Joe/Joanne after she is taken away by her cruel Uncle Curt, and he even identified Curt as the man who hit him while taking Joanne away. I now wonder if the other boys Chris hung out with (Boyler and co.) see Chris any differently at the end compared to at the beginning. What keeps me from giving it a 10, however, is the fact that I felt Joe/Joanne's true gender was rather obvious from the very beginning (based on the color of her clothes, her relatively high-pitched voice, and the length of her wig hair) - even though no one outside of the circus suspected her of not being a boy until her self-disclosure to Chris and his family.
Review of My Friend Joe
