Review: A Fantastic Woman

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

During the course of Sebastian Lelio's "A Fantastic Woman," trans woman Marina (Daniela Vega) is told by several people that when they see her, "I don't know what I'm looking at." And this statement drives home the point that many of the closed-minded individuals with whom Marina has the misfortune to stumble across are making her life choices all about themselves. They are uncomfortable that they are being confronted by a man who has chosen to be a woman, while Marina appears to be relatively unconcerned by their handwringing - that is, until it leads to them taking actions of various sorts against her.

As the film opens, Marina is leading a seemingly happy life with her partner, Orlando (Franciso Reyes), an older man. She works as a waitress, but also moonlights as a singer. During an early scene, the two of them slow dance in a nightclub to Alan Parsons' ethereal "Time," which comes to act as a theme, of sorts, in the film. But soon after they get home that night, Orlando has an aneurysm and dies shortly afterward in a hospital.

From here on out, Marina's life becomes a series of unpleasant confrontations with Orlando's family and various law enforcement officials. In regard to the latter, Marina is presumed to be guilty of something by the police who interview her. Orlando had stumbled down the stairs on the way to the hospital and banged his head, and the authorities who interview Marian not so subtly insinuate that she had something to do with it. Even worse, she must submit to a humiliating interview with a wolf in sheep's clothing - a female detective who acts like an understanding friend, but inflicts all manner of casual cruelty on Marina.

Orlando's family is hardly better. Although his brother Gabo (Luis Gnecco) appears sympathetic, he clearly doesn't want to rock the boat with the rest of the family. Orlando's wife, Sonia (Aline Kuppenheim), is a hateful monster whose role in dealing with her ex-husband's belongings and funeral is - to understate it - overbearing. And Orlando's son is a cretin who boots Marina out of the apartment she shared with Orlando and, even worse, forces her into a car with several other transphobic relatives, who physically torment her, after she shows up to Orlando's wake.

"A Fantastic Woman" occasionally veers from tone to tone - melancholic and even dreamy during several sequences in nightclubs - and has a colorful style that feels partially influenced by Pedro Almodovar. Vega - who is front and center in nearly every shot - is a force of nature as Marina, and the film is often intense due to the danger that nearly always appears to be following her as she walks down the streets of Santiago, where she is assaulted both physically and verbally during the course of the film.

Lelio's film is one of the five nominees for Best Foreign Film at this year's Academy Awards. It is groundbreaking in that it is one of the few films that I can recall that puts an actual trans person - as opposed to an actor playing one - in a leading role. It's also a very good movie that runs the gamut of emotions, mostly due to Vega's knockout performance.

There's a particularly noteworthy scene late in the film during which Marina is lying naked on a bed and looking down at her crotch area, which is obscured by a mirror that she has positioned there. She looks down and her face is reflected back to her. This is what Marina wants others to see, and she could care less what other people think regarding what goes on between her legs.