Normal

In the countryside of the United States of America, Irma Applewood (Jessica Lange) and her husband Roy Applewood (Tom Wilkinson) have been happily married for twenty-five years and they are model citizens in their community.

Roy brings Irma to meet Reverend Dale Muncie (Randall Arney), who is their pastor and friend, to tell that he is a woman trapped in a man's body and he will be submitted to a sex-change operation.

Now Roy has to face the deception of his wife and the intolerance of his colleagues, members of his church and his son Wayne (Joe Sikora). But Irma loves him and after the impact of the news, she understands and supports him with their teenage daughter Patty Ann (Hayden Panettiere) and Roy's boss Frank (Clancy Brown) that is their friend.

"Normal" is a great HBO movie with an ironic title about the life of a middle-aged couple married with children in a small town that is affected by the decision of the husband of changing his sex. The screenplay, direction and performances are top-notch, with Jessica Lange still very beautiful for a fifty-four year-old woman and awesome and courageous performance of Tom Wilkinson. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Excellent performances by Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson. The screenplay affirms the truth of the adage..."the things we do for love". And it distinguishes love and passion, delineating how each strengthens the other.

The writer/director eschews cliches, demonstrating how small events can sometimes tell a story more powerfully than moments of high drama,

I enjoyed it more on second viewing than first.

Tom Wilkinson has been hiding a very big secret from the world. Husband and father, during a marriage counseling visit with his local pastor, he comes out with the fact that inside he feels he was born a woman. That comes as a big shock to his wife of 25 years, Jessica Lange, and their minister, Randall Arney.

This revelation is quite a blockbuster for everyone all around. These are blue collar people, not terribly sophisticated and not well read into the world of transgender. Still most try to cope as best they can.

Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange give a pair of beautifully matched performances in Normal. Wilkinson is a decent man, a good husband and father, a good provider, who can't keep up the pretense any more. He starts to transition into a woman, but stays at home to be the parent to young Hayden Panettiere who is just entering puberty. In fact with the estrogen treatments that Wilkinson is taking is almost like him going through puberty a second time with his own daughter.

Lange is the housewife and mother, she does not in fact work, but during the course of the film does take a job for her own income. Her reaction is to castigate Wilkinson, but also to blame herself and in fact her pastor says something like that to her. His only solution is to come up with some scripture from Ephesians that he says covers the situation. Something about emasculating her man.

Arney is an interesting character, transgender is not something taught at the seminary. He's trying to figure it out, but can only think and operate from a very narrow framework. Eventually Wilkinson and Lange leave the church, a most gut wrenching experience for both since they are sincere Christians.

The key scene in this film is during a family reunion at Thanksgiving when Wilkinson's father, who's suffering from the beginnings of Alzheimer's. There is a deep focus shot of Wilkinson in the foreground as dad, Richard Bull, is talking about how as a kid with five daughters he was worried about having an effeminate son when he caught him trying on his mother's clothes. Bull relates he beat his son to get the effeminacy out of him..

The shot then switches to a closeup of Lange and it's worth more than ten pages of dialog as she now knows this is not either some whim of her husband's nor anything that is her fault. Excellent camera work and acting, especially for a TV movie.

Although they are married and stay married, my guess is that at some point Wilkinson and Lange will part amicably. During the film in fact she does begin an affair with her husband's boss, Clancy Brown. My guess is that though she does love Wilkinson very much, Lange will miss the physical intimacy of marriage.

Someone did some good research into transgender issues. There is a brief scene with Wilkinson trying to talk in a higher register now that he's transitioning. One thing I've learned from transgender friends is that one's vocal cords are set for life in puberty when one is male. There are vocal techniques to talk lower, but they have to be learned and presumably Wilkinson will learn them. People who are born female will have their vocal cords thicken with the testosterone treatment

There are very few people that out and out hate the man for transitioning to female. He does get some hate graffiti on his truck and he does get into a fight with one of his co-workers. Mostly they just can't understand. Interesting that Hayden Panettiere reports no problems in school with peers over her dad. It's sometimes the case that the young are the most tolerant indeed.

Normal is a sensitive treatment of transgender issues with some fine performances and a good story with no real ending in sight for this family.

Normal is a funny, lovely, touching love story about a God-fearing rural small-town Midwestern couple--Roy and Irma Applewood--played by Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange. Shortly after their 25th anniversay, Roy goes public with the revelation that he has long felt that he is a woman trapped in a man's body, and with the Protestant determination to do something about it, no matter the consequences. Irma (Jessica Lange), an avid knitter and member of the church choir, naturally finds this a little disconcerting.

And so the fun begins. Roy gradually becomes a woman, and Irma, as well as the kids and the townspeople, all react.

Wilkinson is a curious transsexual, shattering virtually all of our myths, he evolves from an aging, non-descript man into a still-frumpy and hopelessly homely woman. While we may feel his pain, Anderson is much more interested in challenging our reaction to him than delving into his conflicted anguish. Nevertheless, she treats his change with a certain amount of whimsy. It is difficult not to warm to his smile when he dons his first earrings.

But it is Lange who is the star of the show. Demonstrating a surprising knack for dry comedy, she moves from frustration and resentment to acceptance and compassion. Surely drawing from her own Midwestern roots (some of the move could easily have been filmed in Cloquet, Minnesota!) Lange's character never wallows in self-pity, but searches for answers within, as she seeks to redefine her relationship to her husband.

Lange once again displays her extraordinary talent. (Truth be told, she was my first crush, and she is aging beautifully.) She portrays strength and vulnerability like few in her class. (Meryl Streep comes to mind.)

Hayden Panettiere is also quite good as the 13-year-old daughter.

Normal premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

When I read the synopsis for this movie I was a bit 50/50 whether to watch it or not. Thank God I chose to do so. It is a journey of discovery, of pain, of sorrow, of anger, of resentment, of bitterness which then turns to a journey of acceptance, love, commitment, and joy. I know there is a lot of talk in the USA today about homosexuality, etc and such issues, but all I ask of anyone who has a soul is to give this movie a chance with an open heart and mind. This movie asks the hard questions and there are no easy answers. What you have is a group of actors plying their trade at the highest level. I commend this movie very highly to anyone with an open mind. I give this movie (for honesty) 9/10. A must see.