A few times each year a film comes on the scene that is simply a natural. The story is simple and flows of its own accord; the movie seems to have made itself. The characters are real and the actors are cast perfectly. The story is ahead of its time and yet so true to life that it seems prophetic. Such is the case with the easy-going “Transamerica,” a story that presents itself unashamedly and only asks to be taken for what it is; a tale of fantastic circumstances about people normal and unusual at the same time. “Transamerica” laughs at itself and cries at its own truth; and we can’t help but laugh and cry with it.
The star of the story is a pre-op transsexual biological male, soon to turn the “outie” into the “innie,” as star Bree Osbourne (Felicity Huffman—“Desperate Housewives”) puts it. Bree is from a conservative background and holds a conservative point of view, all things considered. The last thing she wants to do is hurt anybody, but at the same time she hurts her mother and father and is prepared to abandon her son in her quest for the physical transformation into her true sexuality. Bree is loyal to her values and compromised at the same time. The film actually stresses the traditional family in the radical context of an impending sex change operation.
Having given up almost everything for her sex change, Bree is preparing for the big day when she receives a phone call from a police station across the country regarding her son, who is in jail. Being focused on her own crisis, it is only natural that Bree turns her back on this person who she has never even met and who has no immediate claim to kinship. Under interrogation by her therapist she is forced on a cross country road trip for a reunion under threat that the counselor will withhold the permission certificate Bree needs for the operation.
This great story by Duncan Tucker sets up Bree’s character as being contradicted in so many ways that all will find something in common. She is so overwhelmed with choices and conflicting social messages that she hardly knows where to turn. As she forges ahead with the spirit of martyrs and pioneers, she is crucified by cruel fate at every turn. There is no justice, there are no easy answers and nobody is created equal. Yet this traumatic set of circumstances is set in such a bullet-proof armor of positive attitude that the resulting story never comes close to despair. As in, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” the future is unknown; all we can do is hope for best and plan for the worst.
In the midst of her own set of crises, Bree meets her son Toby (Kevin Zegers—“Dawn of the Dead”) a gay hustler in New York City. The beauty of Bree’s character is that it always contradicts expectations. Where one would expect a transsexual to be sexually sophisticated, she is anything but. Toby completely turns the tables on Bree, so we have that favorite plot invention, the switching of roles between the young and the old. Toby is completely adrift in his moral and emotional dysphoria but completely mature and focused in his immediate goals. Bree is a generation older, but completely unable to make a decision about even something so basic as sexuality. Piled onto this stew pot is Bree’s continuing all-to-human inability to divulge that she is a biological male, not the female she appears to be, and, in fact, is Toby’s father. Writer/director Tucker releases these mysteries as slowly as a buffered LSD tablet with a mix of comedy and emotion that is near perfect in its resonance and pacing.
Excellent supporting roles by Elizabeth Peña (Tortilla Soup) as Bree’s counselor/therapist and native Canadian actor Graham Greene as Bree’s impending love interest, both providing contrasting down-to-earth advice that makes Bree’s befuddlement all the better. Fionnula Flanagan as the control freak mother from hell who violently opposes Bree’s sexual choice, but gets along pretty well with Toby, amazingly enough. Maybe controlling mothers have a little street hustler in them, after all.
Winning awards for Duncan Tucker at the 2005 Berlin and Deauville Film Festivals and Best Actress for Felicity Huffman at New York’s Tribeca, this flick is off to a smashing start. Funny and complete with a few morals than dawn on the audience instead of raining down on them as fire and brimstone, “Transamerica” is one of a kind.
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