Romeos

Pleasantly surprised. Wonderful movie that may help one understand and clarify the concept of gender/sexual identity and sexual attraction/orientation; and how the one is not the same as the other.

Wonderful, sweet and enjoyable movie. Rick Okon is great!

I've literally just returned from the screening of this movie and it's in my opinion one of the best titles out there dealing with the topic of transsexuality and even homosexuality.

What is important and what this movie does so well, is dealing with the topic so problematic for any transgendered person that was ever attracted to someone of the same gender; which is, how to explain to others that being attracted to a woman doesn't make you a man - but feeling like a man does. Rick Okon does an amazing job - up to googling him I couldn't find out whether he is male or female in real life (the perfectly done breasts confused me) and I'm ashamed that I was focusing on this so much because it just shows once more how binary-minded we are about sex and gender, even though this topic is personal to me. However - for not being transgendered himself, the actor really gets the pain, the frustration, everything that is behind the feeling of not fitting in such a basic category system.

I was also pleased with the development of other characters. In a love story, a view-point (and actually the whole life) of someone's best friend can get easily overlooked and I like how they dealt with it. The role of Fabio was also great and the scene with the trans-girl singing was just beautiful.

Basically, if this movie would go on for another two hours, I would keep staring.

I didn't like this movie and it was difficult to watch, I actually made an effort to get through it. I guess it might be recommended to FtMs, because it shows both fight and win, and Idk if other better movies exist that have that in them.

But if you are just a casual person, this will probably make you suffer as it did me. I can not command anything at all in "Romeos", not a single acting job, not the script nor music, nothing. May be realism? That seemed to be fine to me, but I am no FtM myself, so who knows if it's even there.

I liked this movie, but casting Rick Okon as Lukas was a serious problem for me. I never for one second believed he was or had ever been female, so I couldn't help relating to that character as a man and only a man.

It's a sharp contrast to the casting 15 years ago of Steven Mackintosh in the mirror-image role of Kim in Different for Girls. Kim is a transgendered male-to-female, and Mackintosh is SO believable as a woman that I had to do considerable research to ascertain that the actor himself wasn't transgendered. He wasn't, and, in fact, he doesn't look the least bit feminine in real life, which makes his casting as Kim all the more remarkable.

Romeos is a pretty good movie anyway, but it doesn't depict the transgender experiences of the character as successfully as it does his experiences as a man. The movie would have been better with someone else cast as Lukas or if Lukas had just been a gay man, which is how he comes across anyway.

In order to make sense of the character Okon was portraying, I had to ignore all the transgender issues, which simply were absurd for that entirely male character, and I'm sure that's not what the director intended.

I'm going to be honest, I put of watching this movie for several months for multiple reasons, the most important one being the fact that I was unsure if I would even enjoy "Romeos".

I'm a gay transman myself and let's be honest, there aren't a lot of movies who even deal with transgender issues, yet alone the issues gay transmen face. (At this point I'd like to point out that the right word to use in this context is either "trans" or "transgender", most of the reviews on here use the word "trangendered", which is incorrect, in the same way a blind person is not "blinded". Anyway, moving on...)

I won't summarize the plot, considering it is probably the weakest aspect of the movie. To put it simple: It's a love story with lots of teenage drama. Instead I would like to emphasize that I was honestly impressed by Rick Okon's work as an actor. Sure, I would have preferred an actor who's actually trans, but I still thought Okon's performance was great. It was obvious that this was a role he really prepared for, the awkward posture is something I always catch myself doing, it was almost a perfect reenactment.

Most other issues for transmen were also portrayed accurately, constant fear of being found out, people accusing you of being egoistic, stupid questions, having to fight for your rights etc. Yes, some of it was different from my own experience, but that's the thing, there is not one universal experience. (However, two things were simply wrong/outdated. First, transmen usually don't do their own shots in Germany but have it mostly done by a nurse, but I suppose doing your own shots seems "cooler". Second, you can now change your gender marker without any surgeries, but this might have not been the case when the movie was released.)

The only thing I truly disliked was the constant focus on sex. Yes, the gay scene can be quite sexual, but there are obviously lots of gay men who think differently. Oh, and another things: There are definitely better ways to flatten your chest. I was constantly frustrated because the binder Lukas used was just horrible. I suppose it would have erased some of the plot points but it was just frustrating to watch, knowing that there are way better and more functioning alternatives.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this movie, especially to someone who has little knowledge of transgender issues.