Transamerica

Last night I decided to take a break from all of my Winter Olympics watching. We’re one week from the Academy Awards and I like to see as many of the nominated movies as possible before the awards. The handful of the movies nominated for an Academy Award that I have seen truly has been great. Brokeback Mountain definitely deserves all of the nominations that it has received. And though it only received a small number of nominations, Munich was all very deserving. But I came to realize yesterday that I had not seen any of the nominated performances in the Best Actress category. Last night I decided to rectify that.

Last night I saw Transamerica, the story of a pre-op transsexual woman who learns that she is the father of a 17-year old boy. In the movie they get to know each other while traveling cross country from New York to California. Much of the movie seemed to be a comedy, but with some dramatic elements sprinkled throughout.

The best part of the movie was the performance by Felicity Huffman. I went into the movie not knowing what to expect from Huffman. Knowing Huffman from her performances as a stressed working mother of four on Desperate Housewives I really didn’t know what to expect. What I came away with was the impression that this was one of the best performances that I have seen in years. Viewers of the movie definitely get an impression that her character really is uncomfortable within her own skin whose desire to go through the gender reassignment surgery is her ultimate desire. But to see how her son actually completes her life, and not complicate it like she expected, was superb. It’s definitely another film from 2005 that I would highly recommend for anyone to see.

Look later this week for my Academy Award predictions. I’m never right, but it’s always fun to guess who will win.