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Sensitive storytelling

Transamerica (English)

Cast: Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan

Director: Duncan Tucker

In all the hype about Brokeback Mountain and its bold approach to sexuality, it's easy to miss out another voice that says as much and perhaps as beautifully, only because it doesn't shout as loudly. The biggest fault with Transamerica — which stars an unusually dowdy Felicity Huffman and is written and directed by Duncan Tucker — is that it came out in the wrong Oscar year.

Transamerica, a comedy drama about a pre-operative transsexual, is perhaps the best contrast one can find to the rest of the Oscar crop. Where Munich is slick and gripping, Transamerica is raw and pleasantly meandering. Where Brokeback Mountain is grand and sweeping, this oddly quirky film brings with it a small-town perspective that is charming in its sense of fraternity but frustrating in its layered morbidity.

And where Crash's perspective on race relations is harsh and cynical, Transamerica retains the eternal hopefulness of Hollywood.

What makes the film worth the accolades and favourable comparisons is its ability to leave the viewer oddly disquieted through most of the film. The film, especially the far-better first half, moves fluidly between moments of intense pain and mellow hilarity with graceful ease resulting in a story that more closely resembles life than much of the slick, stylised fare doled out of Hollywood today. Felicity Huffman completes the experience with a restrained, mannered performance that makes one want to cry with her in the saddest moments and whoop and cheer in the happiest. Indeed her transition from desperate housewife to struggling transsexual is shockingly remarkable, as beautifully ugly as Charlize Theron's in Monster.

Of course, the film has the trappings of Hollywood. The almost-bubble-gum-pink second half is a let down in the face of a gritty first half. But who could ever blame the film for being hopeful. After all, hope makes the world go round.

RAKESH MEHAR

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