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What a tender, brave film.
Small town folks Irma (Jessica Lange) and Roy (Tom Wilkinson) Applewood, a devoted couple, have just celebrated their 25th anniversary when Roy faces the reality that he's has been hiding a huge secret all his life. He's a trans-sexual who desperately wants gender reassignment treatment and surgery.
In the process of coming to terms with this, they need to deal with their pubescent daughter (Hayden Panettiere), grown son (Joe Sikora), Roy's judgemental coworkers at the farm implement plant, and the intolerant rural church congregation who previously had adored and respected Irma and Roy.
The amazing nuances in Wilkinson's protrayal of Roy transforming himself into Ruth are incredibly powerful as is Lange's Irma who was at first shell-shocked, then confused and angry, and finally to the ultimate acceptance and return to loving this human being who she has shared so much with all her adult life.
The simplicity of the cinematography allows the story to be perfectly told through the very skins of Lange and Wilkinson.
Directed for HBO by Jane Anderson.
My personal rating: A
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