XXY (Lucía Puenzo, 2007): Argentina

XXY

I had been hearing good things about this film since I first started hearing things about the titles playing at the Film Festival this year. I heard nothing specific however and now I finally got around to seeing a showing at the Metro 4. I never did any research on the film before hand and went in cold turkey; before the film started an SBIFF official went on the microphone and said “This is my third favorite film at the festival this year, I hope you are all going into with no idea what you’re about to see. Enjoy.” The man who said that must have similar taste in movies as myself. XXY is now my third favorite film at the festival and I would strongly recommend you go see in without reading the rest of this review.
XXY is not a film I will forget any time soon, this is mostly credited to the main character, Inés Efron (Alex) playing a fifteen year old hermaphrodite. I‘ve never quite seen a performance or story quite like this in theatres before. I would assume that is for good reason too, I can’t imagine that many people being accepting to the idea of a naked 15 year old girl taking up the screen, especially if that girl is also a boy. The parents of Alex are going through nothing easier at the same time, the father has moved himself and his daughter away from the rest of the endlessly judgmental world. However, someone inevitably always finds out about these things, drama ensues and life changing decisions are required to be made.
If you want to see a film that makes any controversy about Juno look bad, go see XXY. If you want to see an amazing film based around a subject that is rarely seen on the silver screen, go see XXY. If you want to see a tame, safe film about ordinary people, don’t see XXY. I would rate this film a 9/10/

– Keith