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3-25-06, 9:22 am
Transamerica
Directed by Duncan Tucker
Transamerica is a traditional road movie about a transsexual traversing the US with his new-found son and encountering a series of soap opera-style scenarios that are supposed to transform their lives.
The trouble is that, given its comic take, it lacks a certain credibility factor, never substantiating its theatrical depth, despite an incredible central performance provided by Felicity Huffman.
Not having seen television's Desperate Housewives, I wasn't actually aware who Huffman was, never mind that she was a woman playing a man who wants to be a woman.
Of course I had read about it and knew of her nomination for an Academy Award, but her performance was so good that it will fool those who haven't a clue about the gender-bending.
Huffman doesn't just inhabit the role, she embodies her character so convincingly that you're constantly doing a double take as the awkward male slowly metamorphoses into a fully fledged female.
In colour co-ordinated catalogue clothes of pink and purple, she hides her maleness behind long dresses, only to slip up now and then.
First-time feature writer-director Duncan Tucker says that he was attracted to the subject after a friendship with "a lovely woman who told me, a few months into our relationship, that she was a pre-op transsexual.
"Her life had been incredibly difficult. She'd been abused and rejected by friends and family. Yet, for every heartbreaking story that she told me, there was an improbably funny one."
Wanting to help dispel the continent of ignorance on the matter, Tucker obviously chose to stress the comic rather than the tragic consequences. It hasn't stopped it being criticised by the Republicans' religious right.
Their reason? It's a queer take on traditional family life.
It opens with an instructional video of a woman explaining how women pronounce words, with Huffman as Bree desperately practising before submitting herself to the judgement of two doctors.
She's a preoperative transsexual who lives in Los Angles in a condition known as "living stealth" - technically male but living life as a woman before the chop or, as she later explains, "having an inney rather than an outy."
While one doctor isn't too convinced of her reasons the other isn't too convinced that she's really prepared for the transformation, she suddenly gets a message from somebody who claims to be his son.
As unbelievable as it sounds, it requires that you put disbelief on hold as she seeks to face up to his past.
It comes in the form of Toby (Kevin Zegers), a delinquent, druggy male prostitute who's been banged up and is desperately in need of a bail bonder, so he isn't too suspicious when she offers help.
Instead of telling him who she is, she pretends to be a Christian missionary, tells him that she's going back to LA and offers him a ride with the intention of delivering him to his stepfather.
Toby, on the other hand, simply says yes, since he wants to be in the movies.
So far so far-fetched. Really, it's simply a means and a metaphor for the way west. They bond slowly while she desperately tries to keep her cosmetics and he affects to be cool.
It includes a hilarious scene at a transsexual gathering where they are invited to witness a woman's new vagina. Still, the supposedly streetwise 19-year-old doesn't get the message.
Not so the kids in the street. They manage to throw in the odd insult.
Making a couple of detours, one to the home of the lad, the other to see the grandparents, we see why he ran away, with Irish actor Fionnula Flanagan putting in a fine performance as a peroxide granny.
The last two stops could have provided enough fuel for two films, but Duncan rips through the scenarios, introducing the cliches before scotching them and proceeding down the trail of his tale.
Obviously, there's a love interest, which is provided by the native American actor Graham Green playing a knowing native American who provides Bree with the confidence to believe that she's actually attractive. Patronising or what?
Still, with some great scenery, it's fast-paced enough to keep the attention and, whenever the narrative lags, it's compensated by the incredible and nuanced performance from Huffman.
From Morning Star
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