Bree, played with astonishing realism by Felicity Huffman, is getting ready for her sex reassignment surgery (only days away) when she gets an unexpected phone call from Toby, a son she didn't know she had (former teen heartthrob Kevin Zegers, staking a strong claim as a serious grown-up actor) who needs to be bailed out of juvie 3000 miles [5000 km] away. It turns out that Toby is a drug-using rent boy in New York City, but he wants to go back to Los Ángeles with Bree — who hasn't told him that she's his father. Their cross-country road trip tests them both and the bond they struggle to form. That the film has already been picked up for mainstream national distribution, and that it won the Frameline audience award for Best Feature, demonstrate that this film has the power to take a story about transsexuals and sell it in suburban shopping malls. Variety calls it "laugh-out-loud funny." It's truly a remarkable achievement.
TRANSAMERICA, dir. Duncan Tucker, 2005 USA, 103 min. 35mm, distribution: The Weinstein Co. (theatrical release: winter 2005-06)
What were the other award winners?
ReplyDeleteFrameline doesn't have them listed on their website yet…
They're up now:
ReplyDeleteawards:
• Gypo (Levi's® First Feature)
• Zero Degrees of Separation (Michael J. Berg documentary; about gay couples where one is Jewish and the other Palestinian)
• Blood Sweat and Glitter (audience best doc; about Trannyshack)
• In My Shoes (audience best short; about kids with LGBT families)