It's a rare film that can be deeply moving while maintaining a sense of humor, and this one from writer-director Jane Anderson is truly extraordinary. Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom) plays Roy, a seemingly ordinary Midwesterner who stuns Irma (Jessica Lange), his wife of 25 years, by declaring his urgent desire for sex-change surgery. Wilkinson presents a superbly nuanced portrayal of a man gradually unveiling his true self, and Lange works straight from the heart as she takes her character through a range of emotions—anger, sorrow, amusement. Irma doesn't shut her eyes to the absurdity of the situation, but she can see past it to Roy's unchanged soul.
BOTTOM LINE: A small treasure
