TRANSAMERICA Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
The Weinstein Company
Grade: B+
Directed by: Duncan Tucker
Written by: Duncan Tucker
Cast: Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan,
Elizabeth Pena, Graham Greene, Burt Young, Carrie Preston,
Venida Evans, Grant Monohon
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 11/7/05 “Transamerica, so-called because it deals with a transsexual who takes a road trip across the U.S., might have you thinking that this is the latest from the pen of John Waters. But the sexuality of the principal character, while a major part of the movie’s theme, is more about the patching up of a dysfunctional family than it is about sex. And that’s even though the seven-tten-year-old character has been making a living hustling on the streets of New York, when he’s not shoplifting or thinking about the many times that his step-dad smacked him around. Duncan Tucker’s film can be quite funny at times, but serious on the whole, as the director juggles the lives of two people who despite their individual hangups, discover how much they really need each other. In a tour-de-force performance, Felicity Huffman stars as Bree, a transgendered person from a man into a woman. He (or she) has just one final step to take before emerging as a woman–below the waste. Her empathetic therapist and friend Margaret (Elizabeth Pena), withholds her signature, required by the medical establishment before sending Bree to a surgeon who will transform her into a one hundred percent female. Margaret insists that Bree contact her 17-year-old son, Toby (Kevin Zegers), who is in a New York jail for shoplifting and possessing a controlled substance. The teen, not realizing that the woman who bailed him out is his transformed father, goes along on a cross-country ride to LA., where the young man will pursue a career in acting. While Zegers, who resembles a young Leonardo DiCaprio cross with Emile Hirsch, conveys both the braggadocio and the vulnerability of a lad who ran away from his stepfather when his mother died. He is overshadowed by Huffman’s cutting-edge performance. We’ve come a way since Dustin Hoffman dressed like a woman in Sydney Pollack’s 1982 feature “Tootsie. This time, those of us not in the business of changing our gender are exposed to some of the trans-gender jargon, such as “deep stealth” (living as a genetic female). What gives this story its edge is not only the transsexual theme, but more important, the way that the boy’s biological dad keeps the kid’s paternity a secret–which she is able to do because each day she practices her speech, gets herself made up, carries herself in a feminine way, such as tucking in the elbows because that part of the anatomy could give away her masculinity. As Bree and Toby transport themselves in a wreck that Bree buys in New York, they get to know each other and, as is obligatory in any road trip, run into American “types” along the way. Each meeting provides writer-director Tucker with ample opportunities for humor. The laid-back Native American, Calvin (Graham Greene) is attracted to Bree, giving her his number, contrasts with the flamboyance of Bree’s mother, Elizabeth (Fionnula Flanagan), who resides in a bourgeois house in the Southwest complete with a pool. The story’s loose knots are tied when (of course) Bree tells the boy the truth for the first time about his paternity while coming to grips with her own mother’s disgust and ultimate reconciliation. The film was shot in New York City, upstate New York, and areas of Arizona outside Prescott and Phoenix, providing some armchair traveling for its audience. Felicity Huffman, known for her role in the TV episodes “Desperate Housewives,” has a maternal (paternal?) chemistry with the Kevin Zegers, a bonding that took quite a bit longer than than did Fionnula Flanagan’s with him. Nice cross-country photography by Stephen Kazmierski doesn’t hurt either. Not Rated. 103 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
