igofast
11-30-2005, 02:23 PM
By CHRISTY LEMIRE, AP Movie Critic 1 hour, 1 minute ago
A pre-op transsexual goes on a cross-country road trip with the teenage hustler son he never knew he had. Or would that be she?
It sounds like a bad soap-opera premise. But in the hands of "Transamerica" star Felicity Huffman, this potentially melodramatic idea produces a film that's funny, poignant and remarkably grounded in reality.
A recent Emmy winner for playing one of the Wisteria Lane women on "Desperate Housewives," Huffman is completely unrecognizable as the uber-girlie Bree (who's technically still a man named Stanley), a transformation she achieved not just through makeup, hair and clothing, but from the inside out.
Yes, the film's creative team gets the aesthetic elements right in depicting what it's like when a man pretends to be a woman — or in this case, when a woman acts like a man pretending to be a woman. Bree applies her makeup in bold smudges, and hasn't found quite the right shades for her skin tone. Her wardrobe consists of pinks and polyesters, which would make her an ideal Mary Kay saleswoman. And when she tries to sashay gracefully, her walk comes off as a jerky stomp.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_en_mo/film_review_transamerica;_ylt=AsDVBB.2CaUExCemCBxh hVRxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
A pre-op transsexual goes on a cross-country road trip with the teenage hustler son he never knew he had. Or would that be she?
It sounds like a bad soap-opera premise. But in the hands of "Transamerica" star Felicity Huffman, this potentially melodramatic idea produces a film that's funny, poignant and remarkably grounded in reality.
A recent Emmy winner for playing one of the Wisteria Lane women on "Desperate Housewives," Huffman is completely unrecognizable as the uber-girlie Bree (who's technically still a man named Stanley), a transformation she achieved not just through makeup, hair and clothing, but from the inside out.
Yes, the film's creative team gets the aesthetic elements right in depicting what it's like when a man pretends to be a woman — or in this case, when a woman acts like a man pretending to be a woman. Bree applies her makeup in bold smudges, and hasn't found quite the right shades for her skin tone. Her wardrobe consists of pinks and polyesters, which would make her an ideal Mary Kay saleswoman. And when she tries to sashay gracefully, her walk comes off as a jerky stomp.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_en_mo/film_review_transamerica;_ylt=AsDVBB.2CaUExCemCBxh hVRxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--