In 2016, the comedian Julia Scotti auditioned for America’s Got Talent and brought the house down. Once the applause had died away, the judges asked Scotti, then 63, why she’d come to comedy so late in life. She explained she’d actually been doing it for years – but as a man called Rick, in the mists of the 1980s, when she’d shared bills with Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld.

This uplifting documentary tells Scotti’s story, and director Susan Sandler doesn’t take a whizz-bang approach – there’s some animation here and there, but most of the film is spent simply letting Scotti talk about her life in different settings: on stage, in cars, on sofas with her grownup son. The no-frills strategy works because Scotti is such cracking company, and because her life has been characterised by such extremes. Raised in New Jersey, she grew up feeling something wasn’t right. She married young but it didn’t work out: she admits she “sucked, sucked, suckarama-sucked” at marriage. It was only when she was in her 40s and having a meltdown after a bad date that a friend told her: “You’re a woman.”

Being accepted as one was another matter: a court deemed her unfit to parent her two children, and she didn’t see them for more than a decade. Enduring school holidays, she recalls in a moment of near-unbearable poignancy, was hard. Trans people and their place in society have rarely been more discussed than they are today, but the film only glancingly mentions the debate. Instead, it does something much more effective – it recounts how a funny, flawed and very likable woman came to realise who she was. The result is a film of real compassion, that will stay with you long after its (zippy) runtime is over.

• Julia Scotti: Funny That Way is released on 31 March on digital platforms.