Review: Transamerica (2005)

3.5
Written and Directed by: Duncan Tucker

Felicity Huffman .... Bree/Stanley
Kevin Zegers .... Toby
Fionnula Flanagan .... Elizabeth
Elizabeth Peña .... Margaret
Graham Greene .... Calvin
Burt Young .... Murray
Carrie Preston .... Sydney

Genre: Drama
Language: English
US Premiere: December, 2005
US Rating: Rated R for language, sexual content, nudity and drug use.

We're not perfect. We can enumerate odd things about ourselves, about other people. It's a common notion. People can make fun of you, tell you how awful you look like, pin point every inch of your imperfection and simply ridicule who you are without respect. It's a terrible world, isn't?

Despite these limitations, may it be physical attribute, mental capacity or knowledge, we still strive to become someone different. We want to transform ourselves now from who or what we are to a self we all want to be. We're not uncovering truths here. We're just improving our present for the much-awaited better life ahead, right? We, just want to be happy. But the fashion we do things for ourselves greatly differ.

PLOT
"Transamerica" tells a story about a man who will be undergoing a sex change surgery. Yes, he's gay, defining his happiness thu surgery. Sounds peculiar? His name is Bree (Huffman). He's living alone telling people his family is dead. Known by his folks as Stanley, he moved away from home for college and from then on, shut the door to his parents. Years later, he prepares for his surgery.

Traveling thru America, he stumbles upon a young prostitute named Toby (Zegers) who accompanies him all the way to Los Angeles.

ACTING
I'm not a fan of "Desperate Housewives". I've seen it probably a couple of times but I didn't really stick to it every week. I heard about Felicity Huffman playing this role in ET, I think last December. At that time, her performance was already an Oscar buzz.

That caught my attention. And when I saw clippings of her with all the big lips and heavy make up, I was really wowed. What a transformation?!

It was like seeing a different "woman" in the movie. She really looked like a man playing like a woman. Well, thanks to the make up committee but without it, there's no doubt that she can still play the role of Bree. She changed her voice to make it more realistic and dramatic, which greatly changed her persona for the character. As Stanley's taking some pills, his voice slowly becomes soft and woman-sounding. In short, she's like a lonely drag queen who tries to live a happy and fulfilled life with a mission for himself - to be happy being a woman. The only support that she's receiving is from his therapist, who guides him through the process of sex change.

With her (Huffman) acting, you can already see Stanley's anxiety, his frustration of being born a man, his loneliness without the support of his family and his vision of wholeness with himself. I can translate his (Bree/Stanley) emotions with her (Huffman) actions and expressions. Bree just wanted to be happy. (Now I'm having trouble with my pronouns!)

Her winning moment in the movie? The hospital scene right after her operation.

Kevin Zegers is Toby in the movie. I remember him from "Air Bud" - the teen film about a boy and dog playing basketball. LOL! His performance was also remarkable. He reminds me of Emile Hirsch who can breath like the character, talk like the character and live like the character. He just presented a different person apart from being the Kevin Zegers back in "Air Bud". It was his breakthrough performance playing a young male whore.

I think playing what they call "gender-bending" roles or homo roles is probably one of the toughest roles they could ever get in Hollywood. I think many would reject an offer and if one dares to accept it and performs very well, then that's a great accomplishment of an actor. If everyone's declining to play the role and you've done a great job doing it, then you're a good actor. You're above all of them. Don't you think?

Many actors won the Oscar playing a role of a homo like Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia", Hilary Swank in "Boy's Don't Cry" and just recently Charlize Theron in "Monster".

I'm happy for him. He just proved that he's not just a teen star of Hollywood and that there's "more than just a pretty face" (as they would always say it).

LESSON
The movie's all about knowing who you are and how the society sees you. It's about self-recovery from the awful past. It's about knowing who you are and who you wanna be. There's a slice of determination in pour hearts that will put us to where we want to be and where we should be. And there's also a slice of courage to go an extra mile.

Oppression shouldn't be practiced. Discrimination is still evident in the society as we are all guilty of it. We all impose the norms to the society just like the Church. I'm not saying I'm against homosexuality. And I'm not saying that I'm pro sex change. As a matter of fact, I'm very clueless after watching the film.

Are we here to change the world? I may be wrong on this but I believe that we should change ourselves first before we change others. This reminds me of Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror". There's a better world out there is we start from ourselves. Let us just pray for internal absolution to our problems and anxieties. Let us not judge other people for who or what they are because they may be doing the same thing to us. Bottom line: the Golden Rule. We can preach but let us remember that there's free will. Let's also pray for happiness of oneself, of others and of mankind. May we find peace by doing this always.

RECOMMENDATION
Watch the movie. It's a revelation of another social issue. Let's laugh at ourselves before we laugh at other people. (That's what I've learned).

Hope Felicity wins the Oscar! ¿?