Transamerica

Starring Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Elizabeth Peña and Graham Greene

Written and directed by Duncan Tucker

Anyway, I found myself kind of fascinated by Doreen, who had done everything necessary to live as a woman except have a surgeon turn her outie into an innie. When Doreen stood up and turned to hit the ladies room, my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself… you know… checking her out.

Little did I know that I had been observed. Later outside the restaurant, after Doreen and Lisa had said their goodbyes, my colleague Senior Bill announced to the party, “Man, did you guys see Mr. Fabulous in there? He was checking out Doreen’s ass!”

Okay, so I got caught red-handed. But I wasn’t carnally curious about Doreen. I was just curious, period. The idea of a biological man who so despises his manhood that he wants to have it lopped off is so foreign to me that I’m as curious about the mindset as I’d be about the mind of an extra-terrestrial. I mean, really— what the fuck? You want to wear makeup and a dress and have guys open doors for you? That’s cool. But sailing past the point of no return? Frankly, it’s beyond me.

For me, Transamerica didn’t really shed any light on the subject— but then again, I don’t think it aims to. Writer-director Duncan Tucker doesn’t present Bree Osbourne (Felicity Huffman), a.k.a. Stanley Osbourne, as a character in transition, agonizing over whether to bid adieu to the old fellah, but rather as someone who has already made the hard choices. Bree is as comfortable in her own skin as it’s possible for a pre-operative transsexual to be. She views her impending surgery as a literal coming-out party, and she’s as excited about it as a born-again Christian at the prospect of an upcoming baptism.

There’s only one complication, and it arrives as a phone call. Any man who received a call out of the blue from a teenager claiming to be his previously unknown son would be taken aback; add the pressure of being one week away from sexual reassignment surgery, and you’ve got the makings of a potentially Oscar-winning acting performance. Bree’s psychologist Margaret (Elizabeth Peña) won’t sign the consent form, of course, until Bree irons out this new wrinkle. Bree has one week to meet her new son, make peace with him and get back in time to have her dick lopped off.

The son, Toby (Kevin Zegers), turns out to be as fucked in the head as you’d expect a kid to be who’s parentless, turning tricks and dealing dope to get by. Bree takes it easy on the kid and poses as a Christian missionary sent to clean him up; Toby sees an opportunity for a free ride Los Angeles, where he hopes to make it in Hollywood as a gay porn star. Will Toby discover the truth about Bree before said truth is surgically removed?

And so begins the Road Movie portion of the film, which observes all the clichés of the genre: highways are eschewed in favor of back roads replete with kitschy curio shops, greasy spoons and retro gas stations with rotary-dial pumps; colorful characters are encountered and befriended; big sky country and desert scenery are observed through the windows of a vintage automobile. None of this stuff is especially compelling; the film makes the mistake of assuming that the addition of a pre-op transsexual is in itself enough to make these tired scenes interesting. More interesting would be a road movie in which the characters actually take the interstates, stop at rest areas to whiz, eat at Waffle Houses and gas up at BP stations like the rest of us.

I hovered on the edge of rejecting Transamerica for most of its length, but tried to hang with it even as it spun out the same threadbare conventions gussied up in gaudy drag. Really, the entire point of the film is to give the lead actor the chance to shine in the sort of show-offy role that Academy voters love, so I knew going in that it would rise or fall on the talents of Felicity Huffman. I haven’t seen her TV show about the four symbolic drag queens, so I had few preconceived notions. To her credit, she immerses herself in the role rather than abusing it as a platform to show off her chops. Bree is a Mary Kaye cosmetics saleswoman overdosing on estrogen, ten times prissier when forced to sleep on the ground or do without eyeliner than any actual woman would be in the same situation. Still, you can imagine meeting her in the real world. Huffman gives Bree sharp angles, and makes her sympathetic without milking sentiment. It’s the work of a pro.

The kid Toby, meanwhile, is such a boring and cretinous creation that I was vaguely hoping Bree would beat the shit of him. He’s a poor foil, and the absence of anyone off whom Huffman can really bounce is a problem. The film never really livens up until Burt Young shows up as Bree’s surprisingly levelheaded dad, but even his presence is problematic— because all you can is think, Jesus, that’s Burt-fucking-Young.

So what you have here is an off-the-shelf road movie with an interesting main character and very few other interesting or arresting moments. Only one scene, in which Bree and Toby hole up in the home of a post-operative Southern belle hosting a transsexual tea party, hints at other directions besides the straight and narrow conventions of the road movie. I kept waiting for it to veer off into the stratosphere, but it keeps it wheels firmly on the asphalt. And I don’t know any more about the transsexual mindset than I did when I checked out Doreen’s ass that night in San Francisco. Sometimes, though, ignorance really is bliss.

February 26, 2006
e-mail mr. fabulous