A new one from Argentina, “XXY,” is a serious film about a difficult issue. In bringing this issue up and looking at it sensitively, the movie succeeds.
Problem is, the film isn’t about much else except that issue. That’s a limitation to an otherwise well-made picture.
At the center of the drama is Alex, a 15-year-old played by Ines Efron. Alex was born with the chromosomes and sexual characteristics of both genders, a condition that used to make someone a hermaphrodite (a term that has been replaced by “intersex”).
Alex has been raised as a girl (thus we will refer to her as “she”) since birth, and is on a daily cocktail of pills and hormones to keep her pubescent male characteristics at bay. But at this age, decisions need to be made.
Alex’s parents (Ricardo Darin and Valeria Bertuccelli) live in an isolated beach town in Uruguay, partly for the isolation. For reasons never made clear, the mother invites a doctor and his wife to visit, as though their presence might help Alex decide on a surgical decision.
The visitors also bring their shy 16-year-old son (Martin Piroyansky), who is both puzzled and intrigued by Alex. In one definitive scene — still rather shocking, even in these jaded times — the two teenagers become intimate.
The film is written and directed by Lucia Puenzo, whose father, Luis Puenzo, is a well-known filmmaker himself (he made the Oscar-wining “The Official Story”). She creates a sandy beachside atmosphere, just right for the playing out of adolescent emotional turmoil.
Lucia Puenzo is especially good with the younger actors. Ines Efron, who was in her early 20s when she made the film, is like a raw nerve exposed: all flailing arms and scowling confusion. If she’s not masculine in looks, she makes up for it with a certain hormonal swagger.
This is all good, and the subject is undeniably rare in movies. But the tread from each one-note scene to the next became somewhat tedious, I have to confess, and Puenzo’s efforts to create symbolism around this situation (the mysterious sex of sea turtles, for instance) plays ham-handedly. The world of this movie isn’t fully lived in, which is why everything revolves around a single topic.
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