Transamerica

Transamerica is a road movie with a twist contained in the first syllable of the title. Two remotely linked individuals start out on a trip across America mainly as a matter of convenience. One of them, Bree, is a transsexual who has had hormone therapy but who still must have the crucial surgery than will make gender transformation complete. Just as she prepares to leave for California where she will have the procedure, she receives a phone call from someone who claims to be her son. He is, in fact, her son, Toby, conceived in a short-lived college relationship years before, and whose existence she was wholly unaware of. Thus one product of her existence as a male will not disappear with the operation. Pretending to be a Christian welfare worker, Bree visits her son and learns that he wants to go to Hollywood to work in films. One thing leads to another, and Bree proposes that he ride with her across the continent to Hollywood. And, yes, the boy doesn’t know that Bree is her father.

This is not really a film that attempts to show that transsexuals are human beings like the rest of us, though it does make that point. Rather it is a film about about an individual seeking to become herself—to become a self--seeking identity and self-satisfaction, struggling to be at ease with herself and everyone else.

Transamerica is a comedy, and Bree is the object of much of the satire. It’s almost always mild and gentle humor, rarely biting. Much of the humor stems from the fact that she doesn’t know how to be a woman, and apparently didn’t succeed as a man either. Throughout the film we watch as she struggles to adopt a way of talking, of dressing, of acting and thinking that will suit her. She’s oddly affected and awkward, and while at first her discomposure comes across as unsettling, it ultimately becomes part of her individuality. Her growing relationship with Toby, her paternal/maternal feelings towards him, the inescapable concern she feels for his well being, iare the catalyst in her transformation.

In many ways Transamerica is not particularly remarkable. There are predictable moments of satire and comedy, most notably the party of transsexuals that Bree and Toby attend midway through their journey. There are odd moments of melodrama as well, not always successful or effectively integrated. Toby himself is a male prostitute, and in one scene he closes a deal with a truck driver. He ends up acting in gay porn films, though it’s clear than these are not the kinds of films he wanted to work in. Toby is less well adjusted than Bree, and whether he is gay (or even transsexual) or not, he’s a mess. His maladjustment worsens when he discovers who Bree is. I thought Toby over-complicated, over problematized, the film.

What rescues the film and makes it remarkable is Felicity Huffman’s portrayal of Bree. It’s a remarkable performance. It’s convincing even early in the film when Bree is awkward and affected. Gradually she changes, relaxes, deepens, but the transformation is so nuanced and subtle that, even after the surgery, she never ceases to be the person we found her to be in the film’s early moments. There is no parody or mimicry in her performance. She takes her character with utter seriousnss and with considerable understanding as well. Like Anthony Hopkins in The Fastest Indian in the World (which I just saw), she thoroughly inhabits her character.

The significance of this film lies in Huffman’s portrayal of Bree, and in Bree’s struggle for personhood. I don’t like that word, personhood, but it’s fitting here because it is not so much Bree’s transformation into a woman that fulfills her as it is her assumption of full humanity, regardless of gender.

Transamerica is a thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile film.