XXY

This was an amazing movie about a hermaphrodite girl called Alex raised as a girl without having any surgeries. It shows the complications she goes through, which genders she is attracted to and the bullying and harassment she endures. There are a couple of mistakes, the first one being the title. XXY is actually Klinefelter syndrome 47 xxy, born with only male reproductive organs. A hermaphrodite with both ovaries and testicles, is actually 46 xy. The title should of been xy instead. The other mistake was when they tried to rape her, they pulled her pants down and said she had both organs, before Vando defended her and pushed them away. It not possible to see this from the outside unless she had both a vagina and a penis, which this is impossible as hermaphrodites only have either a penis or a vagina, but not both. Overall this film would of been a masterpiece, but its a shame the production team didn't research the science of hermaphrodites properly.

I have seen many films, mostly documentaries, dealing with the intersex subject and this is by far the best treatment of the subject I have yet to see. Yes, it is slow, especially for amerikan sensibilities that expect everything to be fast and are therefore lacking in nutrition. This film was complicated, textured and went far beyond any form of politically correct treatment. I especially loved the character of the father. There was suffering but it was tempered with joy and humour, rather than tell the tragic story of the hermaphroditic 'victim' or 'freak'. Most intersex people are not allowed to choose what happens to their own bodies and those that are have to withstand severe societal pressure to conform to the either/or nature of the beast and define themselves as male or female. Alex made the choice to be both seem logical and obviously s/He was not going to lack for friends and lovers. A rare achievement and a template for further treatments of the subject.

An interesting movie that explores the issue of intersex identity and the subsequent difficult relationships that such people my encounter - most because of the polarized perspective of most sis-gendered people...

The movie tried a little too hard though IMHO and the edgy feel to the locations, family dynamics and relationships explored in this movie doesn't really lend itself to opening up this subject to the audience.

In short - it fell short of my expectations of delivering a good movie on the subject of intersex people and how this impacts upon their lives and the people around them. I'd like to see this movie done in a typical 'Suburbia' setting which can then explore the social issues and attitudes more openly and really challenge what people think upon the subject.

This is an area that many people are still very stigmatized for (despite the fact that 1 in 2000 babies are born with an intersex condition!) to such an extent that the subject is not one that is readily discussed in public at all!!! The dirth of movies on this subject is also testament to the difficulty of the subject.

I Just saw this new movie from the Argentinian cinema and found it deeply moving.

To me the idea of showing the inner struggle of an hermaphrodite with such a profound respect was a First. I never saw a movie treating this issue before --not at all in a Hollywood product!!-- and never so seriously and delicately.

Not only his/her struggle, but both his/hers parents. His/hers parents lived 15 years (the child's present age as shown in the movie) of sheer torment. What could they do about the problem? Where could they go to talk about it without raising eyebrows? - the world can be terribly cruel with anyone "different".

I remember only one scene with an albino hermaphrodite in a frontal nude scene in a Fellini movie -"Satyricon"- But there, it was used only as shock value. A freak case. Not here! This is a very humane movie, very tender in it's treatment of a very delicate problem (Could it be because the director is a woman?).

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

And the beautiful, truly beautiful ending! in the past a character like this one was always killed at the end: It drowned, it fell in an abyss. It perished, no matter how. It did not have the right to live.

It seems that now we have grown to be more mature somehow; in this movie, not only the hermaphrodite refuses to be operated on, to become either a man or a woman, NO! she decides to remain what she is: A naturally born human being with BOTH SEXES. And really...Why not?? Great film! great, GREAT film!

*END OF SPOILERS*

Technically though, I found a couple of faults: Although my mother tongue is Spanish, after a while I had to put the subtitles on, since almost all the actors (Mainly Ricardo Darin -the father of the hermaphrodite) go through the movie mumbling their words, sort of like Marlon Brando used to do thanks to the Actor's Studio's Method, and I was missing part of the dialogue (My hearing is excellent, but the straining wasn't worth it, and I was using headphones!); also they talked in extremely low voices, so, since the sea rumble or the rain noise are on most of the time as background sound (They are on location in an Uruguayan beach town), they drowned the actors voices most of the time.

I imagine the director wanted to give the feeling of casual, nonchalant conversation, fine, but you can come up with a more efficient sound quality employing other ways, not as it was done in this movie (Maybe they didn't have enough budget, or the sound wasn't top drawer, I don't know).

The other fault was the length of some scenes..., it looked like one of those old 60s movies from Sweden, where the actors were shown on profile, looking to the right into the horizon for two full minutes without speaking a word or moving at all.

But these two faults are minor really. This film makes you think about the very wrong and terribly unjust ways of contemporary society when looking at minorities. Excellent all actors and a superb director.

First there was Sofia Coppola, who made her directorial debut with the all but safe Virgin Suicides. Now Lucìa Puenzo, another in-bred filmmaker (her father is one of Argentina's most famous directors), has chosen an even more uncomfortable subject for her first steps behind the camera, and the result is a beautiful, bold and oddly touching picture.

Much of the movie's power derives from the astounding central performance by Inés Efron, who plays the troubled Alex, a 15-year old girl living in a village by the sea in Uruguay. It was her father, marine biologist Kraken (Ricardo Darìn) who decided to move there from Buenos Aires, and for a good reason: his daughter suffers from a rare and frankly embarrassing medical condition, the nature of which is hinted at in the title. It has already caused her to break her best friend's nose, and more problems will come as the family receives an unexpected visit from a surgeon and his young son Alvaro, with whom Alex embarks on an awkward relationship.

XXY tackles a delicate issue with great care, allowing both sides to speak their mind (although the movie isn't really about taking sides) and addressing the problem without trivializing it. Most surprisingly, it doesn't get as explicit as other films with similar themes (Boys Don't Cry comes to mind), except for the wonderfully shocking climax (in every sense) of one of Alex's encounters with Alvaro. It's a scene of unexpected poignancy, especially considering the contrast between the brutality of that moment and Alex's visible vulnerability. Therein lies the movie's core: it is not a traditional teen story, nor is it a conventional issue picture; at its center we have a person who is seemingly unable to accept herself, as well as her complex bonds with other people.

It is those connections that the director analyzes with startling precision in the second half, with particular attention to the way the two kids relate with their fathers (close-ups are very important here, as the devastated looks on the great actors' faces act as a counterbalance to the seductive landscape). And there lies the biggest shock: Alex and Kraken, despite the difficulties they're going through, manage to get closer, while Alvaro's apparently perfect life is shattered in a brief, bleak lesson of cynicism from his old man. As a matter of fact, that might be too much: that scene is just a little too cold, too cruel to really feel at home in the picture. However, the rest of XXY holds up in an almost perfect way, with its strong story, affecting cast and an open ending which, despite being frustrating at first, makes perfect sense: this kind of story cannot really end.