Film Review

Transamerica is one of those films that would be best seen on television. It has the look and feel of a tv movie and the context of the film is not any better served by putting it on the big screen. Of course, it is one of those films that aspires to be important, largely because of its potentially inflammatory topic of transgender sexuality.

Playing Stanley/ Bree, a male halfway through gender reassignemnt surgery and a week away from his final trnasition to full female physicality, Felicity Huffman has already won a Golden Globe. I can only attribute that to Hollywood's love of actors who make themselves ugly/ordinary/dislaikable etc. as part of the reason for this recognition. That is not to say that her performance isn't good, in fact, she is really moving at times, but it is not a great film and her character is not truly fleshed-out.

The other factor in the movie's tremedous press and publicity has to come from its producers, The Weinstein Company. Harvey Weinstein is well known for his intense campaigning for his movies at awards times--he goes flat out to make sure that his films are on the public's radar and that is surely true of this film. I actually don't know anyone who has actually seen it in a theatre and I know a lot of people who go to movies all the tiume, but that hasbn't stopped the movie from being talked about and Huffman mentioned for Oscar nods etc.

Basically, Transamerica is a road-movie with a twist. One week before his surgery, Stanley/Bree discovers that a son exists that he/she was unaware of and, in order to get her psychaiatrist to sign-off on the surgery approval, must go and find out if the boy is truly one of his/hers. The journey back to LA from New YORK and the deepening of the relationship between the two total strangers is what the film is really about--the transgender issue is merely the device to make the film a bit more interesting. Again, I don't want to minimise the importance of dealing with gender and sexuality issues--and of course, this makes the uproar over Brokeback Mountain seem really tame, but this is not a film about that really--it is about a broken relationship between two broken people who wind up discovering that they need each other in spite of their issues, challenges, and personal struggles. Their are some great lines that come up occasionally but Huffman seems a little stiff to me playing the man who wants to be a woman.

Should you see Transameirca? absolutley, but wait until it comes out on dvd.