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'Transamerica': A gender-bender road trip

Just as a transsexual can be a woman who feels she is trapped in a man's body, Felicity Huffman is an astonishingly good actress who has been trapped in a succession of unimpressive supporting film roles.

Both have a coming-out of sorts in Duncan Tucker's remarkable Transamerica, the tale of a transgender, transcontinental road trip.

The Weinstein Company 'Transamerica' A- The verdict: A transsexual twist on the road trip genre, with an astonishing lead performance by Huffman. Director: Duncan Tucker Starring: Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Pena Run time: 103 minutes Release date: Dec. 23, 2005 Rating: R for sexual content, nudity, language and drug use. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Transamerica'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Huffman, who scored a Golden Globes award earlier this week for her performance, plays Bree (born Stanley) Osbourne, a prim and conservative soul in the process of learning what it means to be a woman as he/she prepares for gender reassignment surgery.

In that sense, Huffman has to play a man playing at being a woman, shot full of female hormones and dealing with the stress of an imminent life-changing operation. She does so with such persuasive commitment that the actress virtually disappears into the character, while delineating his journey to womanhood every step of the way. From her earliest attempts to modulate her voice and apply makeup, we are won over by Bree, whose biggest challenge is yet to come.

For a week before the surgery, she receives a phone call from a 17-year-old boy named Toby (Kevin Zegers), jailed for petty theft and drug use, who claims to be Stanley's son. Unaware of such a child, Bree's instinct is to ignore him, but her gender counselor insists she visit him as a condition of her approval of the operation.

So Bree flies to New York, bails him out and agrees to take him with her as she drives back to Los Angeles. The snag is that she cannot bring herself to tell him that she is his father, preferring the safer cover as a church do-gooder.

Although transsexuality hovers over the entire movie, and particularly Huffman's performance, Transamerica is actually a quite conventional road picture. For Bree, it is a journey of unexpected discovery. While she has been focused on learning how to be a woman, she finds that she also needs to learn about suddenly becoming a parent.

Along the way, Toby asserts himself, trying to shock Bree with his tawdry history. He insists they pick up a spacey hitchhiker, who returns the favor by stealing their car, with all their belongings and Bree's crucial hormone drugs. This increases her urgency to get back to Los Angeles, but also sets up an endearing sequence when they are picked up by an amiable Native American, Calvin Manygoats (Graham Greene), who develops a crush on Bree.

Less benign is a stop against Toby's will to visit his abusive stepfather in Kentucky and eventually to see Bree's parents (Fionnula Flanagan and Burt Young) in Arizona. They have difficulty accepting the idea of Stanley as a new daughter, but eagerly embrace the grandson they knew nothing about.

Transamerica is an odyssey of emotional highs and lows, which first-time feature screenwriter-director Tucker negotiates with exceptional sensitivity and humor. Zegers, seen in the Air Bud movies, has a terrific showcase here that should open doors to a significant film career.

But ultimately, the main triumph belongs to Huffman, who dominates every scene with an intelligence that lets us see Bree's turmoil and tumult and gradually gain an affection for this deeply conflicted woman. In a year of several standout female performances, Huffman's is head, shoulder and Adam's apple above them all.