(I’m not even sure that’s how you spell her name!)
The only movie I remember seeing her in, was Transamerica. I missed the opening section of the movie, got in where she is on the highway with her/his son. That’s the thing about transgenders. They can be both genders in a single life. I can’t imagine doing that! Living in a second skin?
No way.
And she is simply marvelous as the transgendering dad who learns he has an adolescent son suddenly as he embarks on his journey to California to complete the gender switch. Felicity is so good at playing a guy playing a woman role that it earned her accolades and peer fame.
Every inch of the movie is filled with her sense of tension as she embarks an irreversible switch, sprinkled with a bit of old good fate in the formula, and the most touching performances emerge of all the actors, not just Felicity.
Her mother is fabulous, for example, and seriously disarming in her scope and emotional surprises. This movie is put together beautifully. And it shows in the stellar performances by actors who were given stellar roles to play — if you know what I mean? Without good writing, no matter how gifted the performer, the tale eventually folds into obscurity — Oh, yeah! Remember that role?
My all-time favorite scene is the dinner scene in Arizona with his parents. The adolescent son has grown to admire his unknown father and is protective of him, holding his chair out so that he can sit down, the way ladies do!
When an adjoining party comments on how well-mannered the boy is, and so respectful to his mother, his mother (she is fabulous in this movie!) says tersely, “He’s not his mother,” and there is a rush of hilarity in what she has said. Love her!
So in this movie the supporting cast is as equally talented as its leading lady, Felicity Huffman, one of the finest thespians around!
Detours and distractions…
This movie is filled with Pathos and Beauty.
This movie is a treasure to behold.
