Transamerica





A good script elevated by an amazing performance by Felicity Huffman. Strong B.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts. The movie is good, but Felicity Huffman is incredible. She makes a good movie great.

Grade: B+

My thoughts exactly. The film itself was rather mediocre at times, but Huffman's performance is simply amazing. She deserves every award she has received thus far. The emotions, the mannerisms, everything was nearly flawless.

B+

Huffman is really good. The first 30 minutes were really promising thanks to the light tone, but then it rubs "I'm a drama" into the face of the viewer. At the end it is too much. They shouldn't have concentrated so much on the situation of the sun. Okay he's a male prostitute, I could also accept that he was molested by his stepfather, but then hitting on Huffman and ending up in porn is just waaaay too much.

B

Yeah, some definite quirky independent film pitfalls went a long way. It was just a little too silly.

But I do think Huffman did deserve the Oscar over Witherspoon and undoubtedly gave the best female performance of last year. It's showy, but it's also really sensitive and pretty heartbreaking.

B+

Eh... overall I really loved it. *shrug* I dunno.

Based on the trailers I didn't know what to expect, but I was actually pretty surprised with Huffman. Thought she was brilliant.

A, though maybe a little closer to an A-.

The problem with Transamerica isn't Huffman, it's all the characters around her. The transexual story is a good one, but the story loses it's power especially in the character of the son, who they portray as a New York gay porno gigilo druggie. The step father that hits his son after three minutes. The overbearing mother with the sex crazed father.

But the character of the son goes nowhere. Is there a point to the fact that he has sex with the guy at the truck stop? Is there a point to all of the money he keeps stashing? I started to wonder why any of what he was mattered.

A more difficult screenplay would have been to have a less-flawed son who has to come to terms with his transexual father.

Transamerica is a good movie, but not a great one. It lacks something important, and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. Felicity Huffman gives an awesome performance, though, and was almost as good as Reese Witherspoon.

B

Huffman was just.... amazing. This is no masterpiece... andaroo hit on some of the biggest flaws, imo. The screenplay needed some work... the supporting players were poorly conceived. Still, Huffman elevates this. Big time. B+

I had heard great things about this film before viewing it such as Huffman deserves an Oscar, etc. Well, the film behind the hype was painful in almost everyway. The cinematography by Stephen Kazmierski is noticeably amateur. The film looks cheap and comes across as less refined than your average TV drama. Mark White's production design was consistently garish and unappealing when it wasn't so bland as to be a non-factor. Costume designer Danny Glicker seemingly had a field day coming up with embarassing outfit after embarassing outfit for Huffman to wear, usually pukey green or fecal brown, it truly is ugly. Pam Wise's editing doesn't fare any better with slipshod scene transitions not helped by director Ducan Tucker's inability to conceive proper pacing. Instead, the film comes across as nothing more than a series of vignettes. The film really seems to lack a central focus at times.

The much ballyhooed acting leaves much to be desired. Kevin Zegers is a poor man's Emile Hirsch and it shows as he either overacts or underacts scene-after-scene. He lacks a middle ground with which his performance could have come off as more real instead of the "confused teen" he ends up playing. As for Felicity Huffman, she is better but nowhere near as good as any of the other Best Actress nominees. Reese Witherspoon and Keira Knightley's respective performances are so much better as to exist on another plane altogether. She whisper talks and is far too bland in her role. It's hard to care for a character who is so drab or whiny. Not once did I care whether she reconnected with her pathetic excuse of a human being son because both are people you not only wouldn't want to meet, but aren't even interesting in the way serial killers or other social misfits are when played by skilled actors (i.e. Hannibal Lecter as played by Anthony Hopkins).

Grade - F

With all the praise Huffman received for her role, I think most people went into this assuming it would be an equally great movie. While that really isn't the case, I think Transamerica works very well as a light, multi-layered comedy. The Tobey character comes off as very frantic and half-heartedly written, but the film invests so much of its energy into the lead, and Huffman does a brilliant job at really becoming Bree that it ultimately outways all of the problems.

I loved the sister, btw. Hehe.

B+

B+


Transamerica is a good film and, to my big surprise, also a much more entertaining one than I have expected. It's kinda werird considering that it deals with rather heavy subjects, yet it manages to somehow keep a lightness of sorts about itself. The mix of drama and comedy works well for the most time here, maybe except for the ending where it just was a bit too much with Toby getting into the porn industry. It's as if nothing really has changed for the better for him since the beginning of the film, except for him finding his parent. Felicity Huffman absolutely carries this film. Having seen the performances by her and Knightley in Pride and Prejudice, I must really say that it was a shame that Witherspoon won for her almost supporting turn in Walk the Line. Knightley and Huffman were clearly better, in my opinion. Huffman takes on a very difficult role here and plays it very well with wit, bravado and necessary vulnerability at times. Kevin Zegers didn't impress me much, but I suppose he didn't have much to do anyway.

I thought that the film started just okay with nothing really great in particular, but once Bree meets Graham Greene's Calvin the movie really takes off and only gets better from then on. Its highlight is probably the scenes at Bree's family's house, showing how deeply troubled her family is and yet, that despite all, her parents still love her/him.

On the whole, it's a very solid film that is much more fun and lighter than its subject matter might suggest and stands out thanks to a tremendous performance by its lead.

I loved it more than a lot of people here. It was really funny and touching, and Huffman was superb. A great road movie and one of 2005's best films.

9/10 (A)