Transamerica

One of the better movies that will probably never be shown in the Bible belt country. That's too bad because it would have made their world a little bigger and maybe open their eyes to the diversity of humanity.

Transamerica is the story of an MTF transgender who, the week before his full transformation, gets a call from a teenager who may or may not be his son. The son is in jail in New York City, arrested for hustling, drug dealing and petty larceny, and needs to be bailed. And so he goes to rescue the boy and they journey across the country so he can have his surgery that would make him a "woman". Of course, they both would discover themselves along the way. A little cliche-ish but it worked.

One of the best parts of the movie was its really smart, real crisp dialogue. It doesn't sugarcoat the difficulties of being 'different' and the way we react to these "freaks". It educates and hurts and makes us rethink our own prejudices. The other part are the actors. Felicity Huffman (of Deperate Housewives fame) plays the soon-to-be-female and Kevin Zegers plays the son. This is Felicity's movie all throughout and she deserves the Golden Globe award. Kevin is hot! He will be in some pretty big movies after this one.

Transgenders/transsexuals have been the subject of many movies previously. Most have played to the stereotypes (To Wong Foo, for example) while others (A Soldier's Girl) attempted to present these "freaks" as normal as you and I. Transamerica belongs to the latter category and not to be missed.