bliss_s
12-24-2005, 09:00 PM
I first saw Transamerica when it was the closing film for the Frameline film festival in San Francisco and won the ""The Frameline Audience Award for Best Feature"". The film was obviously a labor of love. Duncan Tucker wrote and directed and wisely cast Felicity Huffman as Bree (before she had been cast as a ""desperate housewife""), Huffman's husband William Macy is executive producer. I saw it again and liked it even more when it opened in limited release 12/23/05. The plot line is certainly the tried and true formula of the transformational road trip, yet the irony of Bree's concurrent sexual transformation freshens a story that could easily have been cliché. Kevin Zegers and the rest of the supporting cast are superb, but Huffman's characterization of Bree is Oscar caliber. See Transamerica! It's not tragic like ""Boys Don't Cry"". It's not about sexuality, fetish, or camp. It's a movie about otherness, transformation, family, and ultimately acceptance. Felicity Huffman's performance is absolutely astounding. It's her acting skills that fill Bree with insecurity, pathos, warmth, humor, and growth and ultimately transforms the movies audience from freak show curiosity to empathy and identification. Thankfully the Weinstein brothers recognized just how outstandingly strong this performance is and decided that Transamerica would be one of the first films they would choose to distribute after their great success at Miramax. I'm looking forward to seeing it again in general distribution and eventually owning this great independent film on DVD.