Transamerica (2005)
One week before sex reassignment surgery, Bree Osbourne (Felicity Huffman) discovers he fathered a child years ago during one of his few sexual encounters with a woman.
Bree’s therapist refuses to give final approval for the operation until he meets his son, so Bree travels across the country to bail Toby (Kevin Zeggers) out of jail.
His mother committed suicide and his stepfather was abusive, so Toby ran away from home and makes a living as a male prostitute. Feeling guilty, Bree agrees to take Toby with her to Los Angeles.
When their car and money are stolen, Bree visits her estranged parents asking for help. There, Toby awkwardly attempts to seduce a horrified Bree which forces him to reveal the truth. Hurt and angry, Toby runs away while Bree returns home alone to have the surgery.
Weeks later, Toby arrives at Bree’s doorstep bragging about his acting career in homosexual pornographic films and they begin a tenuous reconciliation.
Most famous for her television work in Desperate Housewives and Sports Night, Felicity Hoffman manages to make Bree both villainous and heroic. We sympathize with her struggle to find herself but cringe at her indifference to her family and friends.
Kevin Zeggers rose to prominence as a child in the Air Bud films. His performance as Toby established him as a serious, dramatic actor.
Burt Young is immortalized as Paulie in the Rocky films, but his career has been otherwise indistinguishable. He’s solid as Bree’s father, Murray Schupak.
Canadian actor Graham Greene was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in Dances with Wolves (1990), but his career has mostly consisted of small, character roles. He’s strangely effective as Calvin Many Goats, a trucker with an awkward crush on Bree.
Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan breathes life and vibrancy into what could have been a stock, one-dimensional character as Bree’s estranged mother Elizabeth Schupak who sees Toby as a way to make amends for her past mistakes.
The movie captures the confusion surrounding transgender issues. There’s a lot of uncomfortable material about sexuality, but pretending problems don’t exist won’t solve them. This film is biased towards a sympathetic view of transgender issues, but it never pretends Bree’s decision doesn’t have moral consequences or doesn’t deeply affect other people in the world. It may be her decision, but it’s not just about her. This is a fair and honest film about a difficult, emotional subject.
The Quiet American (2002)
The political machinations of America’s early involvement in Vietnam serve as a backdrop to this complicated love story.
From Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) to Sleuth (both the 1972 and 2007 versions), to Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) to his recent work with Christopher Nolan, and the fantastic Children of Men (2006), the majority of Michael Caine’s films are very good. This film joins Jaws: The Revenge (1987) as notable exceptions.
Vietnam is overdone, and Brendan Fraser is not believable as Alden Pyle, the duplicitous American who befriends the morally upright journalist, Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine). I like Fraser, but he’s better in big, over the top productions than small films like this. He’s a poor man’s Harrison Ford.
The movie wants to be poetic and literary, but it’s too heavy-handed, and the implicit parallels to American involvement in the Middle East are not subtle.
All of this could have been forgiven however, if this adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel weren’t really boring.