"'-Beauty is relative.'-Not my relatives.'"
4 Stars
I didn't want to see this movie for a while. Honestly I was afraid of how the transgendered would be portrayed. I don't feel it's a joke, and when I first saw the previews, it looked like a comedy. After some time, and listening to the great reviews it got from my trusted movie buddies, I said yes.
Transamerica is not only a portrait of a transgendered man but, a great road picture as well.
Bree (Falicity Huffman) is a week away from her final gender reassignment surgery, which for her is the final missing element in her life to make her feel whole. She receives a strange phone call from a Toby, apparently her son, who must be the product of a somewhat clumsy sexual encounter years ago when she was a man. He's in jail in New York, and hoped his father would bail him out. Bree tries her best to sweep the issued under the rug, but her therapist won't sign her surgery approval until she faces her past.
She bails out her son for one dollar, under the guise that she's from the church. Hoping to drop him off where he was raised, they hit the road.
I guess a story like this is predictable enough. They bond, the kid finds out, they have car trouble, tears, rage, laughs, the gamut. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining or moving.
She now has a son, who has no one, and believes his father is a rich playboy in LA.
What a huge change for someone whose never had to care about anyone but themselves. When you have a child, the child comes first, and that lesson was a fast and hard fact for Bree to grasp.
Now there was a little Victor/Victoria thing going on in the movie. Huffman, a genuine woman, plays a man, who is living as a woman. I thought it would be hard to look passed that, but she did such a great job! A very deserved Oscar nomination for her.
The subtleties of Bree's insecurities where great. She is constantly primping, tugging at her top, making sure that she is presentable. Even more, to be acceptable as a woman.
Her voice was great, and so what the greasy make up. It has always fascinated me why men or women who've had plastic surgery have oily, shiny faces!
Get some blot sheets girl!
Transamerica really reminded me of another great road flick, Around the Bend.
Though not the same situation, it did deal with father and son issues. In both films the sons have one idea what their father is, and they don't want to hear different.
From personal experience there is something magical about a road trip, that opens a person up. Maybe we feel this way on the road because it feels like we're never going back.
Transamerica is not only a portrait of a transgendered man but, a great road picture as well.
Bree (Falicity Huffman) is a week away from her final gender reassignment surgery, which for her is the final missing element in her life to make her feel whole. She receives a strange phone call from a Toby, apparently her son, who must be the product of a somewhat clumsy sexual encounter years ago when she was a man. He's in jail in New York, and hoped his father would bail him out. Bree tries her best to sweep the issued under the rug, but her therapist won't sign her surgery approval until she faces her past.
She bails out her son for one dollar, under the guise that she's from the church. Hoping to drop him off where he was raised, they hit the road.
I guess a story like this is predictable enough. They bond, the kid finds out, they have car trouble, tears, rage, laughs, the gamut. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining or moving.
She now has a son, who has no one, and believes his father is a rich playboy in LA.
What a huge change for someone whose never had to care about anyone but themselves. When you have a child, the child comes first, and that lesson was a fast and hard fact for Bree to grasp.
Now there was a little Victor/Victoria thing going on in the movie. Huffman, a genuine woman, plays a man, who is living as a woman. I thought it would be hard to look passed that, but she did such a great job! A very deserved Oscar nomination for her.
The subtleties of Bree's insecurities where great. She is constantly primping, tugging at her top, making sure that she is presentable. Even more, to be acceptable as a woman.
Her voice was great, and so what the greasy make up. It has always fascinated me why men or women who've had plastic surgery have oily, shiny faces!
Get some blot sheets girl!
Transamerica really reminded me of another great road flick, Around the Bend.
Though not the same situation, it did deal with father and son issues. In both films the sons have one idea what their father is, and they don't want to hear different.
From personal experience there is something magical about a road trip, that opens a person up. Maybe we feel this way on the road because it feels like we're never going back.
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