Different For Girls is a 1996 comedy film starring Rupert Graves (
Sherlock,
Maurice) as Paul Prentice and Steven Mackintosh as Kim Foyle, two classmates who have a chance run-in years after leaving school.
Different For Girls provides examples of:
- Air Guitar: Paul plays a mean one.
- Berserk Button: Whenever Kim's threatened or insulted, Paul often takes things to a physical level. An earlier flashback revealed he had the exact same Berserk Button when they were teenagers.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Kim and Paul argue over their differing approaches to conflict while trying to outrun some men Paul pissed off. And it makes the scene adorable.
- Cool Bike: Paul's new bike at the end, but he makes his ramshackle bike look good.
- Crotch-Grab Sex Check: A very, very serious use of this trope when Kim is felt up by an aggressive arresting officer. In the real world it is indeed sexual assault.
- Drives Like Crazy: Paul to some extent, and the cabdriver from the opening sequence.
- Easy Sex Change: Averted. Kim transitioned and had bottom surgery several years ago, but is still trying to become fully comfortable with herself. She mentions that Paul is the first person to whom she's shown her post-HRT body as well.
- Guys are Slobs: The other couriers who work with Paul Prentice are. Paul himself is a quite rough around the edges, but he makes up for it with charm, and being Rupert Graves.
- In Vino Veritas: Paul gets drunk before a date with Kim, and keeps putting his foot in his mouth because he has a number of unresolved issues at that point in their relationship and how he feels about Kim, culminating in indecent public exposure.
- Longing Look: One of the hints that Paul had been in love with Kim before her transitioning: their old school photo shows Paul directing this to Karl.
- Music: The film subtly shows Paul using music to express his feelings, especially towards Kim. After the disastrous first meeting, he listens to Whole Wide World, a song about a man willing to go anywhere and do anything to be with his dream girl. During their second get-together, he puts on Another Girl, Another Planet, a song about two lovers in their own world. And during the trial, when Kim shows up, he sings a The Cover Changes the Gender version of Boy in the Gallery. "The girl I love..."
- Old Friend, New Gender: When Paul meets Karl, now Kim, again, years later.
- Perpetual Poverty: Paul Prentice's life.
- Punk Rock: Paul tries to reestablish their bond over their shared love of punk music. The film has an awesome soundtrack.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Despite him having a girlfriend earlier in the film and her sleeping with men in the past, this may be the case for Paul and Kim in regards to one another. He's straight and falls in love with a woman, but there are some implications he was already in love when they were teenagers and Kim was still Karl. It seems Kim never had any interest in women before or after transitioning, slept with men as a way of trying to cope with emotional issues, and quickly fell in love with Paul once they were reintroduced.
- Trans Relationship Troubles: Different for Girls revolves around a post-op trans woman meeting a high school friend again. He's at first freaked out but eventually comes to accept her and falls for her.
- Victorious Childhood Friend: Paul for Kim.
