Transformer

When Duncan Taylor was trying to get his American road movie financed he had doors slammed in his face for three years. Although Transamerica revolves around a character on the verge of a sex change operation the film is not camp. Yet while the hero, Bree, has a task she must perform it’s not Lord of the Rings.
Becoming aware of a child he fathered long ago, Bree’s must confront his offspring and the resulting responsibility before his psychiatric counselor will sign off on the transgender operation.
“We got the most we could and we just went for it,” Taylor tells Free Press Houston in a phone interview. Among other sacrifices Taylor’s mother and brother mortgaged their house while a good deal of the rest was put on credit cards. Subsequent film festival screenings in Berlin (“We had an uncorrected color print.”) and the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival garnered the film a distributor.
“Harvey was very persuasive,” noted Taylor and indeed his film Transamerica is one of the first volley of releases of the Weinstein Film Company.
Taylor elicited a remarkable performance from Felicity Huffman as Bree. In a season where so many actors are getting acclaim for what are basically very good imitations of famous dead people Huffman has raised the bar on what acting is all about.
“There is nothing exploitive about the part or her performance,” remarked Taylor. Commenting on Huffman’s amazing ability to play the physicality of both a male and a woman Taylor simply said “Huffman disappears into the life of Bree. I look at other actors in other films and I just see technique.”
The film’s low budget forced Taylor to innovate. For a scene where we see Bree pull the car off the highway and micturate the filmmakers needed a working albeit fake penis. One company actually gave Taylor a quote of over $12,000 to manufacture the movie prop prosthesis.
Since necessity is the mother of invention, and the budget would not allow for such an expenditure the film’s prop department came up with a $12 solution. They drilled a hole in “Andy,” which was the name of the fake penis Huffman wore to get into character. A few hoses were attached, the liquid was pumped through, and the effect is priceless.