Transamerica is based on Duncan Tucker’s first script. Not bad for a first script! Felicity Huffman has already won a Golden Globe and could win an Oscar.
It’s a pretty strong year for non-heterosexual themes. Brokeback Mountain is doing very well and King Kong stormed through the box office (Naomi Watts and a giant ape isn’t heterosexual, it’s trans-species!).
Transamerica has one MAJOR strength and a few minor weaknesses. The strength obviously has to do with Felicity Huffman’s performance. I don’t watch much TV, so I haven’t seen her in Desperate Housewives. In fact, I’ve only seen her in Transamerica. I know a lot of people found the whole transformation a bit hard to swallow but I felt it was totally natural.
The plot is where a lot of the minor weaknesses lie (devil’s in the details). First off, it’s a road movie. In that way it’s similar to another indie - Broken Flowers. Unlike Broken Flowers, the road trip in Transamerica lives up to the title but not much else. The turns are not abrupt and nothing much happens.
In short, the movie’s about a transsexual-to-be, Bree, played to perfection by Felicity Huffman. S/he gets a call just two weeks before his/her final operation. The call comes from a jail in NY and it reveals that her/his son needs to be bailed out of jail. S/he does that but hides who s/he is. Father and son then take a trip to Cali.
The climax is not as strong as one could’ve expected either. Toby (the son) runs away when he learns that Bree is his “real” father. It’s probably what a teenager in that situation would do but realism doesn’t help the movie any.
Overall, this is a good date movie with one very strong performance. If you’re hetersexual and comfortable with your gender, you’ll feel delighted all these problems will last for less than two hours. If you’re gay and comortable with your gender, I guess Brokeback Mountain is a better choice!
A note to distributors: ContentFilm distributes the movie in Europe. If you need contact details, let me know 
0 Responses to “Review: Transamerica”