"Transamerica" is a very strange film. It is, on the one hand, a completely ordinary road trip/buddy film, starring a television actress and a young actor who kind of reminds me of Shawn from "Boy Meets World". On this particular hand (I think it's my left hand), "Transamerica" is about a very ordinary woman who just happens to be transgender. The movie details her journey of self-discovery as she travels across the United States with her long-lost son, Toby.Toby is a very ordinary name, by the way. Or at least, hella white (maybe not?).
For an example of this hand, here is the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:
Bree is a perfectly adjusted conservative transsexual woman. Born Stanley, a genetic male, she's about to take the final step to becoming the woman Stanley always wanted to be -- until she finds out that she is the parent of a long-lost 17-year-old
Ok. Second hand.
Bree is transexual, and a woman, and conservative, but she is sure as hell NOT well-adjusted. Her every movement screams anxiety and repression. Felicity Huffman does a great job of playing Bree as a nervous wreck, rendered clumsy by fear of not passing.
Even worse off is her son, Toby. He's addicted to presciption painkillers, he was raped by his step-father, and he was picked up by the police for selling his body. His big dream is to be porn star. His biological mom is dead and his biological dad is a transwoman who lies to him and tries to abandon him after bailing him out of jail.
On the first hand, my left hand, Bree is perfectly adjusted and Toby is a Huck Finn-like teenage rebel. On my second hand, these two folks have huge, glaring personal problems. In fact, the more I think about this movie, the more Toby's numerous, long term, gay-for-pay issues overshadow Bree's.
I mean, Bree is doing pretty much ok by the end of the movie. She's had her surgery, and she's out of the back room of the restaurant, waitressing.
Toby meanwhile, is starring in "Cowabunghole", using the same breathy, seductive voice he used on his rapist step-father when he was forced to reunite with him. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: it's ALSO the same voice he uses on Bree, when he unknowingly hits on his biological dad.
Oedipus went through less!
"Transamerica" features a week of Lifetime movies' worth of horrible interpersonal issues...but somehow the tone remains light. It's not because the movie is funny, because it isn't really funny, except for maybe Bree's psychotic, eye-shadow overdosed mother. Who actually isn't funny either, because I know women like that, and they've traumatized me.
I guess how "Transamerica" manages to remain on that first hand is mostly via bright, feminine colors and jaunty country music. I don't even LIKE country music, and I still enjoyed those lively banjo tunes.
What else disturbed me about this movie? Well, there's this weird, freak show scene involving a party full of transfolks. It's really awkwardly inserted into the middle of the road trip, and it seems like it was put there because somebody told the director, "Hey! A lot of folks think transpeople are outlandish! Let's address this with an embarrassing party that totally freaks out Bree!" It wouldn't offend me, except that it's just soooo out of place, and the party-goers come off as jerks in comparison to the "stealth" Bree.
"Transamerica" is, overall, a very ordinary and generic film that just happens to be about a really screwed up teenage boy...and oh yeah, one of his parents is a transwoman. Who is also kind of screwed up, but not as badly.
I give it 2 stars.
1 star for "Felicity Huffman isn't a transwoman?!"
And 1 star for "Toby isn't that bad, either"
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