Ion Martea
posted 23 March 2006

Every year at least one road movie is bound to hit the cinemas. In the 1990s we were given trash like Todd Phillips' Road Trip. In the 21st century, the quality has risen back to the levels of Bruce Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Y tu mamá también (2001) and Sideways (2004) both received a fair share of positive criticism, enough to secure critical success for potential new features.

Duncan Tucker's Transamerica has arguably benefited from this trend, although it will hardly be remembered as a road movie. The drive from New York to LA becomes less an adventure than a study in transcending American preconceptions, and in this understanding a nation which chooses to see itself as heralding individualism. Bree (a flawless Felicity Huffman) is a biologically male transsexual ready for genital surgery. Within a week, she is to be reborn in the body refused to her at birth. The hormones treatment, the numerous body language exercises, the voice training, have all brought her close to her final destination of becoming a woman. Yet her journey does have a last barrier she has to cross.

Eighteen years ago, a 'tragically lesbian' relationship led Stanley (now Bree) into fatherhood. Toby (Kevin Zegers) thinks his dad is a successful businessman in LA, descended from a heroic line of Native Americans, and not a 'freak' struggling in two jobs to pay for a sex-change operation. Nonetheless, Bree feels duty-bound to save her son from drugs and prostitution in New York, and manages to get him out of jail by disguising herself as a Christian voluntary worker from the Foundation of Potential Fathers. Toby needs a ride to LA, in order to fulfil his dream of being in the movies (pornography, to be more precise), and that is why he accepts the company and the care of this odd-looking, conservative fundamentalist.

Good road movies are excellent character studies. The premise is simple: two (or more) opposing characters are set for a psychological battle of egos trapped within the limits of a moving vehicle. Transamerica is no exception to the rule, although Tucker is ingenious enough to make us root for the victory of a character many might find at worst repulsive, and at best odd. With Bree at the wheel we are not only spectators, but become friends trying to come to terms with our own acceptance of others, trying to remember what being a good parent means, trying to behave adequately as well-mannered children.

Arguably, we are all Toby, consciously trapped within the unfounded horrors of our perceptions. His transition is testament to our own feelings towards Bree. First cold and suspicious, then repulsed at the discovery of a 'tranny' crossing our way, then accepting, when we understand that beyond the choice of gender lies a real human, grieving and loving, with a complex personality we may all fall in love with.

Yet, Toby has not finished his journey. Ultimate acceptance takes place only when we consider our feelings towards a member of our family 'suddenly' deciding to change his/her sex. 'Suddenly' is key, as Bree's parents (played by Burt Young and Fionnula Flanagan, in a witty performance central to the films' biggest laughs) refuse to accept their son's choice even at the point when Bree barely resembles Stanley. 'He is still our boy,' exclaims her mother after violently checking whether the golden jewels are in place. And even if we, as spectators, agree when Bree is saying: 'My body may be a work-in-progress, but there is nothing wrong with my soul', Toby's reaction on identifying his father will ring true probably in most of us.

Tucker's work is courageous, particularly as this is his first feature. Transamerica deals with themes so universal about parenthood, acceptance, and unquestionable affection, that we cannot but treat it as mainstream, even though these are seen through the prism of a character type generally marginalised in society. As most critics have noted, it is not a film about transsexuality, but about love. However, this misses the essential ingredient of the film, also omitted earlier in discussion of Brokeback Mountain. Both films deal indeed with the universality of sexual or platonic love, yet these are not works which just happen to have gay or transgendered characters as protagonists, but are films constructed around the psychological dilemmas of people we help to make outsiders through our own fears of anything different. The generalisation of themes does nothing but pigeon-hole these individuals into the same old shelf, forgetting that beyond appearances there are some of the bravest individuals among us.

'We walk among you,' exclaims a stealthy biologically female transsexual in Transamerica, who can easily pass as a man brushing your shoulder in the supermarket. Toby listens and agrees, but at that stage ignorance is bliss. The reconciliation with his father may not be an easy journey, but at least Tucker manages to lay the responsibility off the courageous and place it instead on us. It's time for the mainstream to make its own choices.