![]() Alexandra’s huffy response when another character uses the term “drag show” to describe her Christmas Eve cabaret act makes it clear how far she’s moved beyond what she feels to be a crude conception of gender performance. Baker-who also co-wrote the script with Chris Bergoch, served as co-cinematographer, and edited the film-possesses an amplitude of moral vision that feels particularly fresh in a movie about transgender people, for so long culturally visible primarily in the guise of tragic drag queens. No one in this story is all villain, all hero, or all victim. ![]() In Tangerine, that includes smoking meth, forcibly abducting one’s romantic rivals, and-most damning of all, at least in Sin-Dee’s eyes-stepping out on one’s boo. (Karren Karagulian, who plays Razmik, got his start in the film industry as a non-professional cast member in Baker’s first film, Four Letter Words.) Baker casts a compassionate and nonjudgmental gaze on every one of his struggling, screwed-up characters, even when they make dubious life choices. He has a preference for using mainly non-professional actors-Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, who both shine in their roles as Alexandra and Sin-Dee, are real-life friends whom Baker met while spending time at a Los Angeles LGBTQ community center. And Starlet, a drama about female friendship that happened to be set against the backdrop of the San Fernando Valley porn industry, set itself apart by refusing to milk its potentially lurid milieu for titillation, comic relief, or sentimental moralizing. Prince of Broadway explored a very different New York immigrant experience, that of a Ghanaian clothing hustler who’s unexpectedly saddled with a baby his ex-girlfriend swears is his. His 2004 breakthrough, Take Out, focused on the life of a Chinese immigrant in New York trying to deliver enough takeout meals to pay off a debt. The encounter that follows will reveal unexpected depths in both characters, and new layers of moral complexity in Sean Baker’s unmissable Tangerine, a sneaky slice-of-life indie that comes on all casual and cinéma-verité in the early scenes, then slowly coalesces into a romantic comedy as intricately constructed as any door-slamming stage farce.īaker has made five feature films so far, each concentrating on a different subculture rarely made visible on mainstream movie screens. 24 isn’t all that different from his average workday-at least, until Alexandra flags down his cab and gets in. Razmik’s weary matter-of-fact manner as he kicks these losers to the curb suggests this dismal Dec. Meanwhile, Razmik, an Armenian immigrant who drives a yellow cab, is dealing with two terrible passengers, drunken revelers who barf all over his backseat then try to weasel out of paying their fare (“come on, man, it’s Christmas!”). An incensed Sin-Dee drags the reluctant Alexandra out of Donut Time and into the street on what will prove to be a daylong quest to locate and smack down the errant Chester and his new lady friend. But as Alexandra indiscreetly lets drop, Chester has been messing around since his best girl was away-and to rub salt in the wound, his latest dalliance is a biological female of Caucasian descent (in Sin-Dee and Alexandra’s disdainful parlance, a “white fish”). Sin-Dee has just finished serving a month in prison for drug possession, and her first wish on regaining her freedom-after she’s done splitting a donut with her devoted but trash-talking best friend-is to reunite with her pimp/boyfriend Chester. It’s the morning of Christmas Eve at the sketchy intersection of Santa Monica and Highland in Los Angeles, where a pair of transgender prostitutes, Alexandra and Sin-Dee Rella, are sharing a red-and-green sprinkled donut.
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