Edgar at the Movies: Transamerica

Coolia snuck me into the theater along with some sweet tarts to see Transamerica. I found myself relating quite a bit to the main character, Bree, who undergoes a sex change operation. However, Bree really desparately wants the operation, whereas I had no idea what was going on. All I remember is I was on a cold slab and then when I woke up my balls were gone. But, this review isn't about me. The basic story involves Bree, a male-to-female transsexual, who receives a phone call from a troubled teen who claims to be her son. With horror, she realizes the boy must have been conceived during one awkward college sexual encounter she had with a woman. Bree's therapist won't allow her to have her sex reassignment surgery until she meets the boy, so Bree travels to New York to bail him out of jail. She then takes him on a cross country trip, letting him believe she's a Christian do-gooder rather than his father. This is kind of mean, sort of like when Coolia and Nerdia fake throwing the ball and I run for it and they laugh. Felicity Huffman is a revelation as Bree - completely convincing, strong yet sad. The roadtrip meanders too long but the scenes with Bree's parents really come alive. As much as I like car rides, this one becomes a bit tedious - maybe because it goes for laughs at the expense of some of the heavier themes it brings up. In the end, I felt it lacked the gravitas of My Dog Skip. Attention Hollywood producers - a similar movie about me could be called My Dog, Snipped.