Caterpillar follows David Taylor, a biracial gay man in his fifties living in Miami, who travels to India for unregulated iris-implant surgery in hopes that changing his eye color will finally make him feel seen. Director Liza Mandelup uses close, observational access to explore beauty standards, identity, and the gap between cosmetic change and genuine self-acceptance. The Leans Progressive label reflects the film's sympathetic framing of a queer man's life, including friction with a mother whose conservative expectations around gender and identity are presented as a source of pain. The documentary does not frame traditional values as villainous, keeping the rating mild rather than strongly progressive.