[Oscar Madness] [Happy 10th Birthday!] Transamerica (2005)

Director: Duncan Tucker

Cast: Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Graham Greene, Fionnula Flanagan, Burt Young, Carrie Preston, Elizabeth Pena

Screenplay: Duncan Tucker

103 mins. Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language and drug use.

• Academy Award Nominee: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Felicity Huffman)
• Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song (“Travelin’ Thru” by Dolly Parton)

It’s been ten years since Felicity Huffman’s career-making and Oscar-nominated performance in Transamerica. Today, we take a look back.

Bree (Huffman, TV’s Desperate Housewives, Cake) is a transitioning woman who is about to go through a major life-altering surgery when she discovers that she fathered a son years previously. Her son Toby (Kevin Zegers, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, The Colony) has been making money prostituting himself to the masses or anyone with clean cash. Bree goes to bail out Toby and then takes him on a cross-country trip back home with her, stopping along the way to see her father (Burt Young, Rocky, Rob the Mob) and mother (Fionnula Flanagan, The Others, Song of the Sea).

Huffman’s performance is definitely note-worthy. There were many many times when I didn’t see Huffman performing in this movie. I saw Bree, a woman going through an awakening, albeit an emotionally painful one, and not wanting to reveal herself to her son while trying to keep a part of him in her life.

Zegers brings a strong piece of work here as well. Toby is going through his own awakening. He hasn’t had a father in his life and doesn’t know how a man is “supposed” to act.

I also enjoyed the supporting plays from Flanagan and Young as Bree’s parents. They are old-fashioned folk who just plain don’t understand Bree’s transition and, especially Flanagan, doesn’t want to.

First-time big-time director Duncan Tucker can handle a camera, but he doesn’t particularly know how to impress with it. This film belongs to the performers, most notably Huffman.

Transamerica suffers from an uninspired style and too much meandering on the way to a plot, but aided by some terrific performances, it has the worth to be remembered, if only it were more so.

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe