(Anthem Art and Culture), by Gary Morris (Editor), Bert Cardullo (Introduction), Jonathan Rosenbaum (Foreword). London and New York: Anthem Press, 2009.
— David Hudson, IFC.com
Margaret, of course, knows it's not nothing. No, it's something, something that has to be resolved before Bree gets her dick turned inside out, which seems a bit unfair, since it's Bree's dick. But in this film, psychiatrists have complete control over your life. Fortunately, they're always right and they're always there for you. So off Bree goes to the Big Apple, to track down Toby, who's in the slammer for stealing a frog.3
To save money, they bunk together in cheap motels, Bree wearing a floral sleeping mask that looks like Bill O'Reilly's idea of what a fruit would wear to bed. They camp outside, and we learn that rent boys love the outdoors while trannies hate it, which is something I didn't know before. When we finally hit Squeal Like a Pig, we run into the sweetest black woman6
— recently retired, we can guess, from a long run on Touched by an Angel. Stepdaddy shows up too, but that turns out to be not so good. It seems the old man is a raging pederast, a fact that Toby never bothered to mention. (I guess he wanted it to be a surprise.) Which means that Bree won't be getting Toby out of her hair quite as soon as she expected. But she does snag the kid's beloved stuffed monkey,7 so they can start bonding, although the process takes a jolt when Toby catches sight of Bree's dick during a roadside pit-stop.8
Transamerica takes a serious turn for the worse when Bree and Toby hit Phoenix. Bree has said several times that her parents are dead, but it wasn't too hard to guess that she only meant that she wished they were. We meet Elizabeth (Fionnula Flanagan), the umpteen millionth Mom from Hell in gay cinema, and Murray (Burt Young), the umpteen millionth Downtrodden Dad in gay cinema.
Bree makes it back to LA alone, with no one to take her through the operation but her shrink. In contrast to all the gay sentimentality we've seen before,15 it's a wrenching experience for Bree. She's free at last, free of the penis she always hated, but otherwise her life is exactly the same as before. There's no circle of friends, no romance, no exciting career, no fabulous wardrobe. She's as alone now as we assume she's always been.
1. I must admit that I blew the title, so to speak. I thought that Felicity and Kevin would be driving a Transam. This picture was not made by people who know or care anything about cars. It wasn't until about four hours after I saw the film that I realized it's about trans(gendered) America. Duh!
2. For some reason that's never explained (because it's funny, of course), Bree's ideal of womanhood is June Cleaver (right). But what is funny is that the classic guy-as-chick gag, walking in heels, is never exploited, even though Bree always wears heels, and not shorties either. Could Huffman not walk in heels?
3. Really? Either I wasn't listening or Paul Borghese needs enunciation lessons.
4. Like so many rent boys these days, he's also giving up drugs. Why? So middle-class audiences will like him.
5. It's right across the border from Purty Little Mouth, Tennessee.
6. I couldn't identify the actress. The official site for this film seems to be dead.
7. Not a real stuffed monkey, of course.
8. If Bree is such a lady, why does she haul up her skirt and piss right on the asphalt? Take it in the bushes, honey!
9. I don't know if the camera loves Kevin Zegers, but Tucker sure does. We get endless shots of Kevin sleeping, Kevin in his underwear, Kevin in the pool, etc.
10. Wouldn't it take just a little nerve to show up at a casting call for a Navaho sporting a moniker like "Graham Greene"? But maybe Graham's dad was a Navaho with an affinity for tortured Catholic novelists, eh?
11. Calvin is so unlike George that he was in Vietnam. "I've got a half a pound of shrapnel in my leg," he tells Bree. I'm guessing Duncan Tucker didn't see military service. If you had half a pound of shrapnel in your leg, you wouldn't have a leg.
12. You don't know Edna (right)? Catch her act in the role she was born to play (more or less), Betsy Trotwood in the 1935 MGM classic, David Copperfield. (See it if you can. Amazingly, this film, the MGM classic of classics, doesn't seem to be available on home video anywhere in the world at this writing.)
13. Actually, this plot point gets dropped entirely, as does another one — the cowboy hat that Calvin gives to Toby. "It makes you look like a warrior," he tells the kid, although it does not. You might expect the picture to end with Toby going to work for Calvin, roping steers and branding calves, but that doesn't happen.
14. Or somebody's purse. I guess Bree's purse got stolen earlier.
15. I forgot to tell you about the tranny party that Bree and Toby crash in Dallas, everybody totally happy with their operation, everyone enjoying a fantastic sex life, etc., etc.
16. With those abs he can't handle a twist-cap? This is really reaching for a gag.
17. Tucker seems to be entirely unaware of how similar Bree is to her mother. Eat your vegetables! Sit up straight! Don't use a double negative!
