Transamerica (2005)

Felicity Huffman plays Bree, a pre-op transsexual who receives some shocking news a week before his ... er .. her surgery: he fathered a son nearly two decades earlier. The son is in a New York jail for male hustling, and his mother is dead. Something about the situation brings out the parental instincts in Bree. She bails the boy out of jail and takes him on a road trip across America, originally because he/she was going to rescue the boy from hustling by returning the lad to his step-father. That turned out to be a bad decision. The trip eventually leads them to the boy's grandparents. The major comic complication is that Bree doesn't tell her son that she is a biological man, or that they are related. The gender secret gets betrayed by the presence of a penis, but the father/son secret goes on for the first 2/3 of the film or more, and it actually seems to be working fairly well, The two are bonding. Unfortunately, they bond so effectively that the boy falls in love, and makes a pass at him/her.

Talk about a dysfunctional family!

You think the kid was fucked up before? Hell, those were the good times when he only had to deal with being a junkie and a male prostitute. Think of what he's going through his mind now. How'd you like to make a serious pass at a hot chick and find out it's your dad?

Transamerica is a real oddball of a movie. The plot description makes the film sound like a jaded black comedy, but it's really not like that at all. It's essentially a warm-hearted sitcom at its core, except that the sitcom family's usual spate of wacky problems are all XXX rated in this case. The nature of the issues notwithstanding, the film tackles its problems with wide-eyed earnestness, and has a genuine Midwestern Christian sweetness to it. Instead of holding itself aloof from the odd characters, as Alexander Payne might do in his films, it views them all with compassion, the way you would view them if they were your own children.

And you know what? The whole thing works pretty well. It pulls in a few laughs without forcing too much, and it generates a few tender moments along the way. It succeeds because it doesn't violate its own premise. Although the set-up is quite wild, as I described above, the execution sticks to a reasonable portrayal of how real people would deal with the situation. And they are not only real people, but decent human beings. The boy may be a male hustler who has a screwed-up life, but that doesn't keep him from having the same feelings that you or I would have had at his age, given the situations he has to face. His dad may actually be a woman waiting for the right body, but you'll forget about that after a couple of minutes and just get involved in his/her situation. For that involvement, you may credit the script which defines Bree not as a transsexual first, but as a person whose genitals are only a portion of her struggle for self-definition. You may also credit the actress Felicity Huffman for bringing dignity, realism, and subtlety to the role of Stanley/Bree.

Don't be misled by what I have said. The tone of the film is compassionate and matter-of-fact, but I don't recommend taking grandma or going with your daughter. Transamerica is rated R, but I don't know how it pulled that off. It's NC-17 at heart: full frontal nudity from two males and a female, plus a clear shot of Felicity Huffman pissing with her prosthetic penis. Is Felicity the first person to do full frontal female and male nudity in the same film? In addition to the nudity, there is a constant stream of discussion about drugs, male hustling and gay porno (with the actual acts performed off camera.)

I don't suppose it will ever find much of an audience, but it isn't a bad watch at all, and since it was made for a modest one million dollars, it may even turn a profit.