So, as a forysomething cis gay prof who sometimes teaches gender studies to college students, I'm watching movie portrayals of trans family experiences, and searching for a trans protagonist whom a majority of those communities could find honestly, acceptably portrayed. If such a character even exists in film, at least when played by a cis person, this film's central figure, Ray, just isn't him.
3 Generations disseminates the melodrama unevenly among grandma Susan Sarandon and partner, mother Naomi Watts and the two brothers she vaguely dated 16 years earlier, and son Ray, who transitions but needs both rents' signatures on a form for gender dysphoria treatment. We spend most of the film waiting for the form to be signed, and the melodrama derives from a grandmother who doesn't understand why Ray can't be cis lesbian instead, a mother who has to go find the paramour whom we're led to believe abandoned girlfriend and child years before, and the long lost father, who's gone on to form a second, more perfect family in the meantime. If you've got all that, you're only beginning to follow this movie's overdetermined, forced, and unfelt twists and turns. Without a real emotional center for all viewers to relate to, we were intended, one supposes, to follow whatever avatar fits with your generation as a viewer. What results is a lot of trans and old-school lgbt sturm and drang, but not a movie that will change many minds, offer any new angles on a struggling middle-age and single mom at the center of what could be a rom-com, or come close to pleasing many in trans communities (as referenced in other reviews). Even the last dinner in the film's final scene feels forced and Hollywood, as none of these characters has viewers anticipating good cheer and camaraderie at this point, especially with this knot of twisted family relationships. 3 Generations was going for something significent, but in my search for transcending trans protagonists, I'll just have to go on looking.
3 Generations disseminates the melodrama unevenly among grandma Susan Sarandon and partner, mother Naomi Watts and the two brothers she vaguely dated 16 years earlier, and son Ray, who transitions but needs both rents' signatures on a form for gender dysphoria treatment. We spend most of the film waiting for the form to be signed, and the melodrama derives from a grandmother who doesn't understand why Ray can't be cis lesbian instead, a mother who has to go find the paramour whom we're led to believe abandoned girlfriend and child years before, and the long lost father, who's gone on to form a second, more perfect family in the meantime. If you've got all that, you're only beginning to follow this movie's overdetermined, forced, and unfelt twists and turns. Without a real emotional center for all viewers to relate to, we were intended, one supposes, to follow whatever avatar fits with your generation as a viewer. What results is a lot of trans and old-school lgbt sturm and drang, but not a movie that will change many minds, offer any new angles on a struggling middle-age and single mom at the center of what could be a rom-com, or come close to pleasing many in trans communities (as referenced in other reviews). Even the last dinner in the film's final scene feels forced and Hollywood, as none of these characters has viewers anticipating good cheer and camaraderie at this point, especially with this knot of twisted family relationships. 3 Generations was going for something significent, but in my search for transcending trans protagonists, I'll just have to go on looking.