By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Duncan Tucker
Starring: FelicityHuffman | Fionnula Flanagan | Kevin Zegers
Country: united_states
Year: 2006
Running time: 103
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407265/combined
Chris says: “I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of exceptional lead actresses to nominate this year. Just in time, Felicity Huffman slaughters any potential competition in a brave, absorbing turn as Bree, a 40-ish pre-operative man-to-woman transsexual.
“One week away from gender reassignment surgery, Bree receives a call from 17-year-old Toby (Kevin Zegers), the son she never knew she had fathered back when she was a young man named Stanley. A hustler and drug addict living in New York, Toby contacts Bree (asking for Stanley), needing someone to bail him out of a juvenile detention center. Against her better judgment, Bree flies to New York to meet Toby, but doesn’t tell him who she is, instead posing as a member of a Christian charitable foundation. She offers to drive Toby cross-country back to her home state California, where he hopes for a career in gay porn.
“Despite the contrived set-up, a few dry patches, and Zeger’s limited acting capability (he comes off as a young Michael Pitt, who would’ve been better for the part), director Duncan Tucker’s first feature is an affable character study: it concludes plausibly and avoids the sentimental abyss. But Huffman, wow–even if you already thought she was spectacular on ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Sports Night,’ she’s just a revelation here. Convincing and nearly unrecognizable in her physical appearance and deep, low voice, she plays Bree as the dignified, multi-faceted being she deserves to be, and the conflicting concerns she has throughout feel real and affecting. Never shying away from the emotional and psychological ramifications of someone in Bree’s situation, TRANSAMERICA is still very much a comedy, but it’s no tranny joke. 4 cats”
Scot says: “I was curious to find out how I’d react to this film. The premise and the trailer promised a pretty predictable, contrived story. But all the people I know who have seen it seemed to enjoy it, so I thought I might too. I was right on both accounts: I liked this contrived, predictable little film … well enough.
“Felicity Huffman did certainly pull off not only an excellent technical feat in her role as Bree, a pre-operative female-to-male transsexual, but a nicely mature emotional performance as well. Her makeup was regrettable from the outset, however. (Why does a ‘stealth’ transsexual choose a foundation several shades lighter than her own skin tone?) For some strange reason, it got better as the film went along – even when forced to borrow makeup from others in the Phoenix sequence. But while she was struggling to overcome the last bits of ingrained or learned male traits, I never once doubted Bree’s intentions and felt her
choices were believable.
“As her son Toby (and this is not a spoiler – you learn this bit of information in the first five minutes), Kevin Zeger had the harder role to play. And I don’t think it’s Zeger’s fault that he fails in the challenge. This kid must be a real dolt not to realize who he’s dealing with on either of the two big points that are withheld from him. I just wish that director/writer Duncan Tucker had spent as much time researching hustlers as he apparently spent researching transsexuals.
“Graham Greene conveniently shows up when a Native American proves useful to the story. I guess he tends to do that in a lot of films. But I like the actor’s gentle demeanor and the suggested spark of romance makes us forget what a miserable time Bree must be having. It nicely (and again, conveniently) takes her out of her victim role for a few scenes.
“The transsexual social group meeting was a fun scene, but pretty stupid in the context of the plot. I won’t spoil what that context is, but suffice to say that I think Bree’s and Toby’s hostess behaved abominably and didn’t have even a moment of ‘Oops, this is awkward.’ It just seemed a contrivance to escalate the stakes and, presumably, to slip in a few real trannies into the movie. On one hand that is considerate and commendable. On the other, it’s sloppy and vaguely insulting.
“So, on the whole, I think this film is a good way to introduce your mother to the basics of transsexualism. If you think your mother would enjoy more details, though, check Renee Richards’ autobiography SECOND SERVE out of the library for her. (Or better yet, show her the Vanessa Redgrave TV movie. She’s actually better than Felicity. She even does the pre-stealth part too. And it’s about a real person.) I felt there were details touched upon in the film that needed a bit more explaining for the uninitiated, like the surgery options for female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals and the purpose of the dilators. But of course the film was not about the details. It’s a delicate balance and in carefully inserting ‘just enough’ details to be authentic, I felt we lost a good deal of reality. The film becomes choreographed, rather than a story that unfolds organically.
“And one more performance note: poor Fionnula Flanagan as Elizabeth, Bree’s mother. As I told Caitlin on the way to the T, this part could have been played by a cardboard cutout. Sure, she gets some good jokes in there, but jeez. If you can be sensitive enough to write a role of a transsexual woman who is foremost a person, why shouldn’t you offer the same consideration to a mother? This woman reacts in the stock way any mother is expected to act. But never once do we see a real awareness of conflict in the woman. Ridiculous.
“Okay, it sounds like I didn’t enjoy the film. Not so. I did. I didn’t snooze for even a second and I’m getting to that age where this even happens in films I find exceptional. But I would have not problem pitching the screenplay into the rubbish bin if I were a producer. And I’d fire the director if I’d hired him. But just like in life, sometimes the way nature arranges things is not necessarily right or desirable. Just ask Bree. If this is film that gives Felicity Huffman the chance to do what I just saw her do, right on! And maybe now that a filmmaker has got this stuff up on the screen, we might begin to see some truly creative films that have well-rounded transsexual characters in them. 3 tom-to-queen transsexual cats.
“(FYI, ‘queen’ is the term for a female cat, just as ‘tom’ is the term for a male cat.)”