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Transamerica [2005]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Felicity Huffman deserves every award she's received for her outstanding performance in Transamerica, a small but rich movie about Bree--formerly Stanley--a pre-operative male-to-female transexual awaiting gender-reassignment surgery who learns she has a wayward teenage son named Toby. When her therapist (Elizabeth Peña, Jacob's Ladder) strongarms Bree into facing her past, she bails Toby (Kevin Zegers, Dawn of the Dead) out of jail and they end up on a road trip across the country. Such a premise could feel forced, but the script and performances make it persuasive and natural. Bree wrestles with discomfort and compassion as she learns about Toby's own troubles, even while her own grow worse when she's forced to ask for help from her hostile parents (the superb Fionnula Flanagan, The Others, and Burt Young, Rocky). Transamerica doesn't push for any great catharsis, but instead slowly peels away the layers of Bree's defenses, laying bare her basic struggle for respect and a chance at happiness. In many ways it's a showy role, but Huffman (Desperate Housewives) keeps her acting simple, direct, and thoroughly compelling. --Bret Fetzer


Odyssey in Pink
Review date: 2008-08-29 Rating: 8 out of 10

Initially some viewers might find Felicity Huffman's prissy and naïve transsexual a tad annoying. I know I did. But it's testament to Huffman's performance that one quickly warms to her. And it's around this performance that the entire movie revolves. Although the script never quite lives up to Huffman's bravura, it does come close enough to make this an endearing and engaging movie. Aside from these minor shortcomings, and some occasionally contrived humour, this is a thoughtful, life-affirming piece. Well worth watching.

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Reviews


rare but also human problems
Review date: 2008-06-30 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is a very good film about the complex problem of transexuality, as it doesn't eludes the dark, worrying or quotidian sides and problems of these people but that are made with rare good tact and taste. The actress who plays the transsexual is exceptional and get falling sympathetic.
The problem isn't minor. A man has had a son, but he desires to become a female toward complete surgery. The adventures and encounters with his adolescent son, also with a bad definite sexuality and his own family are dramatic and comical at same time as the episode with the Indian Navajo who falls in love with him.
But at bottom we feel the transcendence of life problems as that, and we can extrapolate to another people with another problems considered out of normal society.



Falling between stools
Review date: 2008-02-06 Rating: 6 out of 10

Involves a long road trip but not quite a road movie, the central character is a transexual but it's not really a satisfactory exploration of transgender issues, occasionally amusing but not really a comedy. Yes, films can work on various levels and while this is not a difficult or boring film to sit through, there's a sort of 'so what' feeling at the end.

Much has been made of Felicity Hoffman's performance as Bree/Stanley, and I don't dispute she interprets well what she has to work with, but I found myself puzzled by Bree. Nervy, twitchy, skittish, prudish, schoolmarmish, even prissy at times - she comes across like a relic from a bygone era, more at home in a nineteenth century parlour novel doing needlepoint. Ultimately, she didn't ring true for me as a character.

Disappointing
Review date: 2007-11-12 Rating: 4 out of 10

Perhaps cinema's most enduring metaphor, the road movie offers its protagonist the opportunity not just to see new places and meet new people, but to find another self. Transamerica gets that tick in the box. But its characters are unbelievable caricatures and the journey predictable, almost pointless.

Great film which should be seen
Review date: 2007-10-08 Rating: 8 out of 10

This is such a beautifully acted film which fully deserved the praise it has received from critics and audiences alike. The empathy you feel and have for Bree (Huffman's character) is largely due to Huffman's beautiful and subtle acting which in lesser hands could have seem forced. Through Huffman's protrayal you feel and understand just how awarkard and uncomfortable Bree feels and how desperate wants acceptance. Although the films deals with pretty heavy and major themes it is not in the lest bit preachy and although it is didactic in that it intends to teach people a moral, the films leaves the audience to make its own decisions and judgements. Kevin Zeggers provides an equally strong preformance as Huffman does as the wayward "son".

Rent or buy this movie and you won't be disappointed.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Graham Greene
Kevin Zeggers
Fionnula Flanagan
Felicity Huffman
Burt Young

Creators:
Felicity Huffman (Primary Contributor)
Fionnula Flanagan (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
EAN: 5060002834749
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2006-07-24
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 103 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2005
Language: English (Original Language)

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