Der kleine Unterschied

In the opening scene of Different for Girls, Karl's boarding-school classmates are tormenting him for his effeminate nature. To his rescue comes friend and protector, Paul. Roll the opening credits, and flash to the next scene, 16 years in the future. It's the scene of a minor traffic accident and two of the individuals involved appear familiar to one another, but something is amiss. Paul, now a punkish motorcycle courier is one, but the other is demure, stylish, female.... its Karl. Paul and Karl (now Kim thanks to sex-change surgery) finally recognize one another and begin a relationship that slowly evolves to romance. The movie essentially chronicles the emotional journey of this odd-couple; and it's done with the proper mix of humor and drama. Well worth the rental.

This film hit me like a lightning bolt. It brought tears to my face and almost restored my faith in the human race. It tries to tell us that even the unthinkable can be done if we accept the combined power of feelings and imagination. We see people struggle with age old morals, their youth and upbringing. We can almost taste the bitter loneliness of the adapted transsexual as we can actually feel the pain of the struggling rebel that (almost) cannot accept the discrepancies between memory and perception, between love, lust and friendship, between what's done and not done. The actors make it all believable and enjoyable. They live the parts that show true bravery in crossing holy borders.

Simple (if that's the right word) British tale of a hot headed rebel who meets up with an old school chum who's now a transsexual.

The script as filmed is almost (but not quite) as cloying as a Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks vehicle: it never really panders to the love story and it sacks trite 'witticisms' for honest language but it has just as faux-romantic of an ending as You've Got Mail or some other bit of schmaltz. However, the riveting performances by its leads help lift this film high above any mainstream pandering mush.

Rupert Graves has a high-voltage sexuality and never slips in his characterization of Paul; it's so common for actors to give some kind of Kabuki-like performance when playing volatility but he's amazingly real.

Steven Mackintosh is a revelation as Kim and his heartbreaking nuances capture an inner struggle between the mind and the heart with wonderful simplicity.

Saskia Reeves (perfect in Antonia & Jane) and Neil Dudgeon also stand out as the married couple who Kim turns to for support.

While far from being a great film, it trumps many, many, MANY other movies that try to be honest and believable in their depiction of gay or transsexual romance.

Missed this first time round, but unintentionally caught a late night/early hours TV airing in the UK. Steve Mackintosh sustains a serious dramatic presence and role as Kim against the heavily scripted comedic/stereotype 'unreformed male' buffoonery of the friend/partner Paul Prentice played by Rupert Graves. Although at times the dynamic of the two styles gives an uneven feel to the whole narrative, the underlying point of apparent complete contrasts, but underlying and overlapping commonality of involvement and feeling is well made. Some of the scenes are intensely moving, particularly those in the police station when Kim is facing arrest and conviction and is placed alone in a cell, uncertain of whether she will face the immediate unwelcome company of another unknown male cellmate, and/or eventual consignment to a male prison. This is hardly comedy, certainly real life drama, and contains the essence of real tragedy. Other scenes in the film evoke similar high tensions in emotional colour and reading.

Overall delivery was a little uneven, but well worth viewing again. Would be worth a full 'in-line drama' remake of the theme, as other commentators have also hinted. A good attempt at a very difficult subject which manages to hit the right emotional responses without actually falling off the tightrope between banality and exploitation.

Alright...maybe this is too psychoanalytical an approach for the film, but here goes. Completely intrigued by the development of the principal characters and their evolving relationship, I took in 2 screenings of this film, as this movie is like an onion -which to get to the core of its subject and to understand its mystery, you have to peel off the multiple layers. A shower scene, a school picture, and a tabloid article are crucial clues that mold the dependency and sexual confusion that bonds the Prentice and Karl/Kim characters together. Their relationship has endured since highschool. We see a young man, who has subtly hidden his sex is embracing his feminine side in the schoolshower. Just before he gets the sh-- kicked out of him by homophobic schoolmates, another boy gallantly rescues the pretty boy from the mob. The audience immediately assumes that it is Karl who was questioning his sex in the shower--but disclosed in later pics, we discover that it is actually Prentice who was doing the introspection! Karl/Kim who could relate to the scene was the actual rescuer.

Portrayed as cool, bold, logical, and independent Karl/Kim presents him/herself with the unflappable reserve of a male personality, who feels dysfunctional with exterior male genitalia. Changing Karl to Kim remedies his/her warped body image, so that he can obtain the feminine exterior which appears so desirable. Expression of the dual conflicting natures can be seen throughout the film as she tries to overcompensate for this masculine interior of herself, by dressing in conservative woman's clothing and finding a feminine career as a Greeting card composer. Even her condo is done up in overtly feminine hues. Prentice is the antithesis of Kim. He is flighty, emotional, dependent and vulnerable. Contrasting Kim, he has an interior feminine nature that is contained in a masculine exterior that is repressed and hidden in a major bravado of masculinity. This is demonstrated with his embracing the fury of punk music, playing the leather-clad macho biker messenger, and keeping up an affront of being a boozer and rebel-rouser. Even Prentice's studio apt seems an exercise in testosterone proving, looking much like an uncleaned dormroom. Peeks at his interior femininity however do come through subtly- he fems up in a ruffled shirt for Kim, and wears a purple T-shirt under his workgarb. Look at Prentices enchanted glance to Kim, versus her patriarchial look back at him in the school pic. His eventual assertion that men are women with an added chromosone. In summation, Prentice completes Kim in that his feminine interior desires her masculine interior, while alternately his masculine exterior fulfills her (now) feminine exterior. If you don't look at Kim's Before/After photo in the tabloid, you don't realize that the character's gender roles were reversed in the school scenes. Kim becomes Prentice's rescuer once again when he emotionally loses it after their first date, and she must stand up again for him (this time it's police bullies) in court! When Kim strips for Prentice, It is like a mirror to the inside of his soul. Complex Film indeed!!!