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Felicity, queen of the deserted
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...especially when you were born with a penis. Transamerica is the best semi-mainstream film about a transsexual since The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Felicity Huffman bids for an Oscar to match her Emmy as Bree Osborn, born Stanley Shupak, who is nearing the date for her gender reassignment surgery. Just as her therapist (Elizabeth Peña) is giving final authorization, a complication arises. It isn't physical, physiological or psychological; but Bree learns that, as Stanley , she fathered a child 17 years ago in a drunken college fling. Having tracked down his biological father with plans to visit him when he gets to Los Angeles , Toby Wilkins (Kevin Zegers, the kid from Air Bud) makes the call earlier than planned when he finds himself in juvie for shoplifting. It strains credibility but this contrivance does the job of getting the two together for the road trip Transamerica is about. The therapist insists Bree come to terms with her past before moving on to her future, so Bree flies to New York to bail Toby out. He's a runaway and a hustler who doesn't want Bree's help: "I don't need any family. I can take care of myself. I'm a loner." She's not about to go through a "Luke, I am your father" scene at their first meeting so she encourages his misconception that she's a missionary trying to convert him. Toby says he's determined to go to L.A. to find his real father, who he fantasizes is part Indian and lives in a Beverly Hills mansion with a pool, and to work in films "like 'Bodacious Blond Bottoms'—not that I'm a bottom or anything." Bree offers to drive him, with the intent of dropping him off at his stepfather's in Kentucky on the way. When that proves a less-than-viable option they're together for the long haul. There are four main events after Kentucky . A visit to a transgender support group in Dallas is educational for Bree and Toby in different ways. They pick up a young hitchhiker (Grant Monohon), who goes skinny-dipping with Toby. Bree meets Calvin (Graham Greene), a Native American gentleman who gives them shelter for the night. And in Phoenix they visit Bree's family: emotional mother (Fionnula Flanagan), mellow Jewish father (Burt Young) and screw-up sister (Carrie Preston), who takes all the heat during Bree's long periods of estrangement. Duncan Tucker, directing his first feature, has given himself an excellent, character-driven script to work from. The events that set it in motion don't bear close analysis but once it gets rolling the evolving bond between Bree and Toby—and the setbacks as he learns more about the strange woman he's trying to take advantage of—are believable because we come to love the characters as they come to love each other. Huffman, whose career has deservedly taken off with "Desperate Housewives," is amazing as a woman whose body is "a work in progress." The actress is helped by makeup that makes her look like Ian McKellen in drag and a perfectly awful (in a good way) wig. She has the exaggeratedly feminine movements of someone who hasn't quite got the hang of it yet. Her "church lady" pose could be patterned after Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen. You'll laugh when she tells Toby, "Stop calling me dude," and your heart will sink with hers when an eight-year-old asks, "Are you a boy or a girl?" Bree is quite a person if not quite a woman. Toby is more of a stock character, the streetwise innocent who had to learn to fend for himself too young. He's childlike when he tries to shock Bree, as with his gay interpretation of The Lord of the Rings. The performance bodes well for Zegers' transition to adult roles. Tucker's Transamerica takes you coast to coast without coasting for a minute. Steve Warren is a local actor and film reviewer. His reviews can also be seen weekly in the Sunday Paper. You can read his interview with Duncan Tucker here. |
Transamerica
Directed by: Duncan Tucker 
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