After reading about Soldier's Girl I couldn't resist the urge to get my hands on a copy to watch it for myself. Since my brother was in the States, I got the movie through him and finally managed to complete it. It was very very engaging indeed.

My sentiments...

As a tele-movie this one frankly is not high in production quality, a fact that director Frank Pierson was also not shy to admit in one of the interviews on the DVD mainly due to the tight budget and timeline given for a televsion production. This was obvious especially in the peripheral storyline where Barry's life in the army was showed. But really, the end product turned out good enough. In fact, if given more time and money, I'm sure this could have easily become a film festival selection. One of the most striking things about this movie is the huge amount of respect the filmmakers have accorded to the characters. Despite all its limitations, this sense of respect was crucial in urging audiences to challenge stereotypes and our beliefs about morality.

There are many invisible groups of people in the world - people who seem to fall through the cracks of the human system and even nature. Most transgenders usually know from an early age that they were born into the wrong body, leaving them in a struggle to reconcile their sexuality and bodily image as they grow into adulthood. I believe it is not easy for these people to come to a decision to finally embrace their sexuality and undergo a grueling surgical process to transform into who they believe they should be. Yet for many of those who had the means and courage to do so, what they faced with was bitter discrimination from so-called "normal" people who seem unable to bear the thought that there exists people who are different from themselves.

This led to the tragic case in 1999, which the movie is based on - Barry Winchell, a US infantry soldier, was brutally murdered by a fellow soldier in the barracks because of his relationship with a male-to-female transgender nightclub performer Calpernia Addams. During the trial for the case, it was then revealed that prior to the murder, Winchell had endured continuous harrassment from his peers and superiors for this love affair with Calpernia. What made it worse was the fact that his superiors adopted an ambivalent attitude towards the harrassment, allowing it to escalate to tragic proportions. This case reopened debate over the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the US Military.

Nevertheless, despite its politcal implications, the movie was never preachy. And for that, I applaude the filmmakers. What it was, instead, was just a love story between two humans who met and fell happily in love. It was a 3-dimensional look at various facets of the psychology of the 2 individuals who seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Apart from the filmmakers, the young actors who played Calpernia and Winchell are simply outstanding. These roles were nothing short of challenges for all its demands and controversies connected to them, but both Lee Pace (who played Calpernia) and Troy Garity (who played Winchell) played them with such professionalism and to such perfection. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were praised for their roles as homosexual lovers in Brokeback Mountain - now imagine one of them as a transgender in the midst of a series of reconstructive surgeries to fully become a woman.

Despite knowing that these were two male actors on screen, the intitmate scenes that Lee and Troy shared with each other was not at all as awkward as I would imagine. In contrast, these scenes were portrayed with a lot sensitivity that made clear to the audience that this was not a frivolous love affair. Both characters had to grapple with their sense of self-identity as they prepared to embark on a whole new journey as one, facing doubts and criticisms both from their environments and from within. All these were played out beautifully by both Lee and Troy.

One half of the equation - Lee Pace

Lee Pace, in particular, shocked me with his excellent portrayal of the complex character of Calpernia. I heard from reviews that he was good, but you have to watch it for yourself to see just how good it was. Lee's Calpernia was graceful, elegant and beautiful - qualities that shone particularly in the scenes where she retreats from the glitz and glamour of being a performer in a club into her humble home. Without the heavy make-up and fancy dresses, Lee's Calpernia still looked beautiful but had an added vulnerablity to her. Most importantly, Lee played Calpernia as a simply a woman, her feminity emerging from deep within. Her love for Winchell was compounded by the fact that she was still not a 'real' woman. This was portrayed in a brief but brilliant scene when, after being hurt by Winchell's confusion towards the blossoming relationship, Calpernia stood in front of a full-length mirror and gazed at her feminine figure which was marred by her manhood in disgust and devastation.

This was a quote from Lee Pace about how difficult it was making this movie (from Wiki):

"Not even my excellent training at Juilliard prepared me for my first movie role, where I played a transsexual who falls in love with a military guy in Soldier's Girl. Here I was, this 6'3" 190-pound lanky kid from Chickasha, Oklahoma, not knowing how to begin being a woman. So I saw documentaries about transsexuals, I lost twenty-five pounds, and I put on prosthetic boobs and hips to become that character. There were times I'd look in the mirror and wonder 'what am I doing to my life here? My dad is going to kill me!' But the reason I went into acting was to be able to play parts as complicated and important as this one. In playing a transsexual, I got the chance to help change people's perspective about other people and that is a powerful thing. I'm playing a swashbuckling bandit in my next film, but I'll always be proud of Soldier's Girl."

A scene below with Lee Pace as Calpernia. I suppose you could take this as a gauge - if you feel uncomfortable watching this scene (though I assure you it's PG, just in case you're wondering), then perhaps you might want to avoid the movie for now...



And just for constrast's sake, here's a recent clip of Lee Pace, who appeared rather lost in the midst of the star-studded 2008 Emmy Awards, where he received a nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy for Pushing Daisies.

The other half of the equation - Troy Garity

Troy Garity tended to overact, particularly in scenes that required some emotional outbursts. But otherwise, he did a wonderful job with the role of Barry Winchell. Since the scene where he first set eyes upon Calernia, you could easily sense the adoration he had for her in his eyes. Despite the harrassment he endured from the military, he was clearly one contented man in the presence of Calpernia. It was obvious that his attraction towards Calpernia was genuine from the start, but he still had to struggle with both the sexual identities of his own and Calpernia's. There were 2 pivitol intimate scenes after he decided to embrace Calpernia as the one he loved, and each scene was a clear progression of his growing acceptance of the relationship and strong desire to make it all work out. A very challenging role indeed, and despite some shortfallings, Troy certainly did it justice.

Trivia - Troy Garity is in fact Jane Fonda's son!

Unfortunately there is a lack of clips on Youtube from the movie. Nevertheless, this clip below, which includes the clip of Calpernia singing at the lake, shows the slight overacting in the emotional scenes. But at the same time, it shows the tenderness he was capable of towards the woman he loved.



Seriously, how many young actors out there would have been willing to take on roles such as Calpernia and Barry Winchell, especially for something as 'insignificant' as a made-for-TV movie? From the movie, it is clear that both actors committed both heart and soul to their characters no matter how small-budgetted the movie is and no matter how controversial the roles might be in challenging societal norms. This, to me, is professionalism. This is what acting is all about.

Verdict

It is easy to turn this movie into the sort of joke which pokes fun of the characters and the situations only because it makes people uncomfortable watching them. In the same vein, it is also easy to criticize the movie because of it's portrayal of what some have very unkindly called "deviants". But my advice is to keep an open heart and it is not difficult to watch this movie and appreciate the importance of seeing each person as a unique individual as capable as you are to love and be loved.

Soldier's Girl sparked renewed debate of the effects of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, 4 years after the murder occured. It may be a small movie, but it is a powerful one indeed.