TRANSAMERICA REVIEW: The Hollywood Reporter By Sheri Linden, Sept 16, 2005 Bottom line: Impressively realized on all levels, this transgender spin on the road trip boasts an extraordinary central performance.On the big screen, "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman often has been relegated to the supporting category of friend/sister/neighbor. With the poignant and often deliriously funny road-trip feature "Transamerica," she steps into the challenging lead role of a solitary, preoperative transsexual and delivers an extraordinary portrait. The film marks an auspicious debut for writer-director Duncan Tucker, whose fresh, character-driven story-telling should make this December release from the Weinstein Co. an art house favorite. Whatever it says about the zeitgeist, the theme of unexpected fatherhood has informed the work of a number of filmmakers this year, among them Jim Jarmusch ("Broken Flowers"), Wim Wenders ("Don't Come Knocking") and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne ("L'Enfant"). In this case, the reluctant but curious dad who learns he has a son happens to be a woman in tasteful pastels. The transgender spin avoids gimmickry thanks to Tucker's deft touch and the subtle work of Huffman and the rest of the pitch-perfect cast, especially Kevin Zegers as the lost-and-found offspring. Gender politics is an element of the film but by no means its subject. Tucker's concerns are loneliness, emotional honesty and the simple need for human kindness. Bree, nee Stanley (Huffman), is self-contained in her little Los Angeles bungalow, and her closest friend is her compassionate therapist, Margaret (Elizabeth Pena). A week before the ultimate surgical step in her gender transformation, she receives a phone call from a 17-year-old New York inmate who claims to be Stanley's son. Single-minded in her countdown to the operating room, Bree dismisses the unwanted disruption, but Margaret refuses to OK the medical procedure until Bree goes to New York to address the matter. Bree bails out the brooding Toby (Zegers) but hasn't the nerve to divulge why she's there and plays along when he assumes she's a church missionary. A photograph confirms that the boy, a good-looking street hustler who ran away from home after his mother died, is the product of a college coupling, and a sense of responsibility takes hold of Bree. Instead of flying home, she buys a chartreuse station wagon to drive Toby cross-country to Los Angeles, where he expects to find his father living large and hopes to break into movies -- of the San Fernando Valley sort. Bree maintains her "deep stealth" (living as a genetic female), keeping two secrets from Toby -- her biological history and his. She's a fascinating character, and Huffman brilliantly embodies the complex layers of self-awareness and denial in this prim yet gutsy individual, who each day must paint on a face and put on a voice to become more truly herself. Self-consciousness is a constant, as the film powerfully demonstrates when a child's innocent but discerning question plunges Bree into despair. As a boy who considers sex his chief talent, Zegers (of the "Air Bud" films and last year's "Dawn of the Dead" remake) conveys Toby's essential sweetness and hunger for real affection, making him much more than just a vain or damaged kid. Instead of settling into quirky odd-couple shtick, the film is full of unexpected turns, with every character the duo encounters surprising and well observed, from a free-spirited hitcher (Grant Monohon) to a New Mexico rancher (Graham Greene) who gallantly comes to Bree's assistance, more than a bit smitten. Tucker's astute script and direction weave laugh-out-loud humor into his characters' longing for acceptance, particularly when their journey takes them to the Phoenix McMansion of Bree's family -- whose kitsch collectibles, part of Mark White's excellent production design, supply one of the funniest moments in the film. You don't have to be a transsexual to understand the way Bree's parents (Fionnula Flanagan and Burt Young) and sister (Carrie Preston) feed her self-doubt. But even the wonderful Flanagan's turquoise-bedecked, monstrously materialistic Elizabeth is afforded her humanity because Duncan lets emotions unfold instead of merely scoring points and moving on. David Mansfield's Americana-tinged score underlines the optimism and the plaintiveness of a journey that's memorably captured in director of photography Stephen Kazmierski's sensitive camerawork. TRANSAMERICA The Weinstein Co. Belladonna Prods. production Credits:Screenwriter-director: Duncan TuckerProducers: Linda Moran, Rene Bastian, Sebastian Dungan Executive producer: William H. Macy Director of photography: Stephen Kazmierski Production designer: Mark White Music: David Mansfield Costume designer: Danny Glicker Editor: Pam Wise Cast: Bree: Felicity Huffman Toby: Kevin Zegers Elizabeth: Fionnula Flanagan Margaret: Elizabeth Pena Calvin: Graham Greene Murray: Burt Young Sydney: Carrie Preston Arletty: Venida Evans Hitchhiker: Grant Monohon Running time -- 103 minutes No MPAA rating © 2005 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved. TRANSAMERICA REVIEW: VARIETY.COM By EDDIE COCKRELL Mon., Feb. 21, 2005, 1:46pm PT A Belladonna production. Produced by Linda Moran, Rene Bastian, Sebastian Dungan. Executive producer, William H. Macy. Directed, written by Duncan Tucker. Bree - Felicity Huffman Toby - Kevin Zegers Elizabeth - Fionnula Flanagan Margaret - Elizabeth Pena Calvin - Graham Greene Murray - Burt Young Sydney - Carrie Preston "Sideways" turns inside out in "Transamerica." Laugh-out-loud funny, tartly off-color and ultimately touching, this road movie involving the cross-country adventures of a persnickety transsexual, and the runaway street hustler son whose existence is news to her, reps a triumphantly genre-bending big-screen bow for writer-director Duncan Tucker. An adventurous U.S. distrib willing to put marketing muscle behind an outspoken comedy, one that feels like vintage John Waters scripted by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, could reap controversy of the former's works and approach kudos-driven B.O. of the latters.' Internationally, it should travel well beyond niche fests to develop crossover appeal in theatrical and homevid. On the verge of qualifying for the surgery that will complete her transformation from Stanley to Sabrina Claire Osborne, primly wry Bree (Felicity Huffman) is given one last hurdle by therapist Margaret (Elizabeth Pena): She must spring Toby (Kevin Zegers), a previously unknown son from a long-ago hetero encounter, from detention on charges ranging from street-hustling to "shoplifting a frog." Sullen Toby believes Bree to be a Christian missionary, and has no clue that she's a he, or that he's her/his son. On these terms, they head from New York to Los Angeles by car, Bree to have her operation and Toby to pursue stardom in the porn industry. Thinking she'll ditch the boy with a stepfather in Kentucky, Bree is shocked to learn that Toby's reason for escaping involved parental abuse. In Dallas, the pair stumble upon a cozy suburban coffee klatsch of the "gender gifted" in various stages of transformation. When their car is stolen in New Mexico by an open-minded but larcenous hitchhiker, they thumb a ride with affable Calvin Two Goats (Graham Greene). On the way to Phoenix, the courtly cowboy becomes quietly smitten with the increasingly disheveled Bree. Pic kicks into high gear at about the hour mark, as Bree reluctantly knocks on the door of her disapproving upscale parents Elizabeth and Murray (Fionnula Flanagan, Burt Young), and rehabbing younger sister Sydney (Carrie Preston). "We all look much happier than we are," Sydney announces to shocked restaurant patrons as the supremely dysfunctional family ventures out to dine. By the end, however, they've made peace with each other as both relatives and individuals. The principal keys to Tucker's success are casting and tone. Thesps by and large play it straight, allowing humanity to survive the shock value of an episodic script inspired by helmer's experience with transsexuals and runaways. This is typified by the most eye-opening sequence, in which Toby glimpses Bree relieving herself by the side of the road and realizes what's going on. As with "The Crying Game" and "Boogie Nights," any resulting controversy will be for all the wrong reasons. In a bizarre resume twist, this is the second film, after P.T. Anderson's "Boogie," to involve both a prosthetic male member and William H. Macy, who serves as exec producer here and is married to Huffman. In a far cry from her current gig on tube hit "Desperate Housewives," Huffman is spectacular as the complex Bree, at once proud and terrified of how she is, who she wants to be, and what she must endure to get there. Zegers, from recent "Dawn of the Dead" remake, finds multiple dimensions in pic's potentially most clich?d character, while Flanagan steals her scenes as a flustered red-stater whose maternal instinct finally trumps her blind prejudice. Discreetly strong tech contributions are led by Mark White's spot-on production design, which conveys the cluttered conservative charm of mid-America on a series of locations in New York State and Arizona. David Mansfield's fine score is supplemented by a clutch of diverse tunes ranging from Chopin to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Camera (color, Super 16mm-to-35mm), Stephen Kazmierski; editor, Pam Wise; music, David Mansfield; music supervisor, Doug Bernheim; production designer, Mark White; costume designer, Danny Glicker; sound (Dolby Digital), Griffin Richardson; supervising sound editor, Lou Bertini; associate producer, Lucy Cooper; assistant director, Urs Hirschbiegel; casting, Eve Battaglia. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005. Running time: 103 MINS. © 2005 Reed Business Information
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