This film features an Oscar-nominated performance by Felicity Huffman and was produced by Huffman's husband, William H. Macy.
A woman in the midst of her gender transition (man to woman) is denied permission for the ultimate surgery until she has come to terms with her son (Kevin Zegers), who has just rung up out of nowhere -- she didn't know she fathered a son during some youthful fling.
She leaves California for the East Coast, to get her gorgeous young son out of jail, without telling him she's his father. They drive across America, meet people, have adventures, get on each other's nerves. Every time they get in to the car, some annoying country music plays. Very old fashioned.
Although there is merit here, and the film is moderately interesting, the stereotypes are annoying. One is sympathetic to someone who is transitioning, but does the transition need to be to a woman who must dress in pink and says things like, "Don't talk like that to a lady!" There's lots of simpering going on. OK -- she has one good line: "I'm a transsexual, not a transvestite." For the son's part, he's been jailed for working as a rent boy. Does he have to seem so depressed when he turns a trick? And Huffman's mother, played by Fionnulla Flanagan, is the most awful mother stereotype of all, who can't deal with the fact that her son is becoming a woman until she suddenly does deal with it.
This movie deals sympathetically with an important issue; but did they have to throw every cliché in the book at it? And the worst cliché of all: Lying is the worst sin. And if you are technically a male, never deny it, particularly to your son (although he doesn't know he's her son at that point, he just thinks she's some nice religious lady), because he'll get really, really upset, but not because of the male genitals, but because you lied to him.
How does this all work out? Does it all work out? Watch and find out. Still I'd recommend it because it does try and deal with a complex subject that isn't that well understood now and probably much less so when this film was made over a decade ago.
A woman in the midst of her gender transition (man to woman) is denied permission for the ultimate surgery until she has come to terms with her son (Kevin Zegers), who has just rung up out of nowhere -- she didn't know she fathered a son during some youthful fling.
She leaves California for the East Coast, to get her gorgeous young son out of jail, without telling him she's his father. They drive across America, meet people, have adventures, get on each other's nerves. Every time they get in to the car, some annoying country music plays. Very old fashioned.
Although there is merit here, and the film is moderately interesting, the stereotypes are annoying. One is sympathetic to someone who is transitioning, but does the transition need to be to a woman who must dress in pink and says things like, "Don't talk like that to a lady!" There's lots of simpering going on. OK -- she has one good line: "I'm a transsexual, not a transvestite." For the son's part, he's been jailed for working as a rent boy. Does he have to seem so depressed when he turns a trick? And Huffman's mother, played by Fionnulla Flanagan, is the most awful mother stereotype of all, who can't deal with the fact that her son is becoming a woman until she suddenly does deal with it.
This movie deals sympathetically with an important issue; but did they have to throw every cliché in the book at it? And the worst cliché of all: Lying is the worst sin. And if you are technically a male, never deny it, particularly to your son (although he doesn't know he's her son at that point, he just thinks she's some nice religious lady), because he'll get really, really upset, but not because of the male genitals, but because you lied to him.
How does this all work out? Does it all work out? Watch and find out. Still I'd recommend it because it does try and deal with a complex subject that isn't that well understood now and probably much less so when this film was made over a decade ago.