Transamericana

Hoping to start catching up on all the films that are likely to garner Oscar nominations, Seattlest went to see Felicity Huffman's Golden Globe-winning turn in Transamerica, playing to a surprisingly packed house (on a weeknight no less!) at Pacific Place. Huffman is indeed excellent as a pre-op transsexual named Bree whose appointment to take the final plunge into womanhood is threatened when she learns she fathered a son named Toby, played competently by Kevin Zegers, who needs bailing out in more ways than one. Turns out the lad has picked up a few bad habits in his 17 years of fatherlessness, including drug use, prostitution, and lousy hair care. The movie follows the unlikely pair on a cross-country trip where their reluctant fondness for one another begins to drag them from their respective coping mechanisms against the injustices of life.

Generally we prefer not to give too much leeway to Issue Pictures just because they shine a sympathetic light on the marginalized--all God's children deserve quality filmmaking after all--but Transamerica tries hard enough and succeeds often enough that it's not hard to give its cinematic transgressions a pass. The film's principal sin is its inconsistent tone: it veers wildly between pleasant and disturbing. In one scene, a kindly Native American flirts charmingly with Bree while, unbeknownst to her, Toby gives a blow job to a trucker for a bit of cash. If the scene showcased Toby's depravity or Bree's obliviousness, that would be one thing, but the film, perhaps unwittingly, treats it almost like a necessary plot point. Like, how else will they get money?

But all in all the film is enjoyable and interesting, especially when the pair reach Bree's family's house. There the film shakes off the last vestiges of its ponderousness and hits its stride. Fionnula Flanagan and Burt Young (Rocky's Paulie!) make hay with what could have been cardboard stereotypes of uptight suburban parents, and Carrie Preston is charming as Bree's ex-junkie sister Sydney, enemy of all bullshit.

And Huffman's performance is laudable. However tempting it is to wish that perhaps a true transsexual had been cast in the role, we give props to Huffman (who we've loved since Sports Night) for taking on, and selling, a role whose believability rests so heavily on the physical challenge of appearing to be both a man and a woman. So much of Bree's character is revealed in her stiff, almost childlike movements as she teaches her body to manifest what's in her soul. Men trying to move like women generally overdo it by a lot, so it must have been tempting for a woman playing a man learning to appear a woman to go for broke on broadness. But Huffman conveys Bree's efforts to find a feminine comportment without ever getting swishy or campy. Bree tries always to dress and move and behave like a lady, and unlike her mother, never runs the risk of being mistaken for a drag queen.

The movie is mostly funny and sweet, tempered with unfortunate dollops of uncomfortable, but its moral--that everyone's journey is easier with someone to help you along--is pretty impossible to argue.

So does Reese Witherspoon's win at the SAG awards Sunday night bode poorly for Huffman's Oscar chances? Oscar does love nominating genderbenders, but he seldom crowns them...