Transamerica

I usually avoid Transsexual movies as they make me uncomfortable ! That's why I avoided the movie "Transamerica" when it came out . But being a movie fan I kept reading reviews that were saying how great the movie was and how great the actors were . So I finally rented the movie in 2011 and viewed it for the first time . I had seen 'The Angry Inch' and it did nothing for me . Then I saw "A Soldiers Girl" and that movie stuck with me but it was violent . Then I viewed Transamerica and was at last entertained . Felicity Huffman , was an Oscar's performance to say the least and she did win that award . She was amazing and I do not think a male playing the role could have carried it off as well . All the actors were 100 percent human and able to reach the audience ! Kevin Segers is a bright spot in the movie as Toby , Bree's son that she did not know she had. Kevin's performance was nothing short of Oscar material , which he should have won something . There are a lot of great up and coming actors from Canada . And if it were not for the Canadians we would not have movies like this , and "The Barbarian Invasion''s . Hollywood just cannot come out of the closet long enough to make a movie in this genre , let alone in off the wall subjects. I gave this welcome flick 8 stars out of 10 . ciao yaaah69

Last week a family getting ready to move gave my wife and I a bag of books and a few films. One of the films was Transamerica. I glanced at the front and back and through "Hmmm, I didn't I know Mrs. H. was into weird movies". A few nights later my wife and I decided to give the film a try. The film was great, we're so tired of the same old Hollywood stuff, action, special effects, top dollar actors who could care less about the characters. The film captured us in the very beginning, we both empathized with Bree, understood her struggle, pain, and basic desire to be herself. The road trip was a great part of the film. I enjoyed the Calvin Manygoats and the meeting with her parents (the mom was great). I grew uncomfortable with Toby's desire to have sex with his biological father, as well as the tryst with the trucker, but this was an intergral part of the story and the film was very realistic. I learned a lot about the struggle and pain that these people have in life, it made me more accepting of their lives. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good story, exceptional acting, and good dialog. It's a very good film.

I saw Transamerica last night at the Tribeca Film Festival and absolutely loved it. I was concerned beforehand that I would not be able to relate to the characters, but that turned out not to be a problem. The acting of Felicity Huffman and Kevin Zegers is done with so much sincerity that I quickly came to care about their characters. Ms. Huffman's performance is one of the best I have seen. Having not seen any of her television or movies, I did not know anything about her. In fact, I thought that she was truly a man playing the part of the transsexual woman. The script was always believable and allowed Ms. Huffman to show some wry humor. The writer/director Duncan Tucker was there to make a few comments answer questions. The only problem is that the film has not yet been picked up by a distributor so if you want to see it (and you should) you may have to find a film festival somewhere.

"Transamerica" follows the trajectory of the long tradition of road movies with opposites paired up on a voyage of self-discovery, with stops along the way to their pasts.

The gimmick here recalls "Broken Flowers"s trip when another biological father discovers a son. Here, it's not just that the person who produced the sperm is on the verge of transsexual completion that helps the film rise above various genre clichés (there was more than passing similarity to scenes from such films as "The Sure Thing," "Smoke Signals," and "Midnight Run" in debut writer/director Duncan Tucker's script, plus unfortunate throwback images of the south from "Deliverance" and way over-the-top dysfunctional families, and some Native American commentary on transsexuals coinciding with a convenient appearance by the ever estimable Graham Greene.)

As graphically embodied in two terrific performances, "Bree" (Felicity Huffman as née "Stanley") and the new-found son "Toby" have opposite relations to their bodies. Having felt like a stealth woman trapped in a man's body, "Bree" is naive to the pleasures of the flesh and is used to having to be wrapped up tight in her struggle to control normality that has impeded every part of her life.

"Toby" is an abused gay hustler who probably for good reason and profit assumes that people of either gender or those in-between are responding to him physically (and Kevin Zegers is such an unfettered, tousled Adonis that he is even more sensual than Joseph Gordon-Levitt's somewhat similar screwed-up kid in "Mysterious Skin").

Both have had only negative experiences with family, as we see along the way, and both have a lot to learn about the parent/child relationship and honesty.

While it makes it too easy for the audience's perception to have the transsexual be played by an actress (like Vanessa Redgrave as Renee Richards or Olympia Dukakis in "Tales of the City" or Famke Janssen on "Nip/Tuck" vs. Terence Stamp in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert") with only two momentary reversion lapses to masculine mannerisms played for laughs and revelation, at least for more realism "Bree" is not in the arts or some high-powered white-collar job.

There were a lot of chuckles throughout the film, but I was surprised that not all of the folks at the crowded opening weekend matinée of a very mixed gay and straight audience joined in. (Though the two guys next to me who had been discussing "Lord of the Rings" just before the film started were uproarious at "Toby"s analysis of the gay sub-text in that story.) It was a cheap shot for easy laughs to have "Bree" be half-Jewish.

While I thought it was for symbolism that the two have a key stop-over in Phoenix, it turns out that was filmed at the director's parents' house in Arizona. I presume the kid's concluding black cowboy hat and blond hair is a bit of an homage to "Midnight Cowboy."

The soundtrack selections are excellent reflections of the environments the characters are in, from Latin in California, to hip hop in New York to a lovely range of Southern country and gospel, moving through Texas with a Lucinda Williams track, Native American in New Mexico, with a beautiful new Dolly Parton song over the credits that should get an Oscar nomination.

This was my favorite film of the Tribeca festival. Felicity Huffman's performance is incredible and grabs you from the first scene. It was a smart, poignant and funny film. Some of the characters are too thinly drawn, some of the humor too inappropriately broad but those were minor issues for me. Though rooted in some ways in standard plot devices, the transgender protagonist makes all the difference in the world. Which, in a way, is kind of the point -- how we view people's differences (with acceptance or disdain) says a lot about who we are. Of course, it played well here in New York City. But what about the rest of Bush's America? By the way, I was told that Lions Gate picked up the film for distribution.