DIFFERENT FOR GIRLS
UK, 1996, 97 minutes, Colour.
Steven Mackintosh, Rupert Graves, Miriam Margolyes, Saskia Reeves, Charlotte Coleman, Lia Williams, Robert Pugh, Philip Davis.
Directed by Richard Spence.
Different for Girls is a serious look (with some touches of the tabloid) at the experience of a transsexual learning to cope after the operation. It is quite a low-key treatment, the screenplay using situations that would be taken for granted in a more usual case of adjustment and relationships.
A sympathetic teenager has defended against peer attack another schoolmate who later has the sex-change operation. Seventeen years on they meet by chance. He has not done much with his life and is a motorbike courier in London. She, on the other hand, has a good job in a greeting card firm.
The film acknowledges an awkwardness, shared by the audience, of confronting this reality, doing so with emotional insight.
1.A London drama? Gender drama, comedy? Transsexuals? A serious and comic examination of themes and characters?
2.The London settings, flats and homes, workplaces, the greeting card company, the messenger service? The use of the city as background and as character? The musical score?
3.The credibility of the plot, the characters? Karl, the prologue, in the shower, his gender issues, being taunted by the boys, defended by Paul Prentiss? The taunts? The background to his sex operation?
4.Karl as Kim, Steven Mackintosh giving a convincing performance? Her work at the greeting card company, relationship with Pamela, Alison? Her skills? The chance encounter with Paul, the cab driver, the crash? Her concern? Their recognising each other? Paul and his surprise? Her accepting his invitation to go out, her response to his curiosity? His performance, exposing himself, the arrest? Her dread of going to the police, their reaction in the van, the skirt and the hands, harassment? Her not wanting to go to court? The clashes with Paul? Her relationship with her sister, letting her sister have her apartment? Going to her, the discussions at table, Neil and his reactions? Children? Her discovery of the relationship between Neil and his wife, the father of the child? His talking frankly with her, her support? Going to work, being absent, the reaction of the people at work? Going to the courts, her courage, testifying? The officer and his being found guilty of harassment? Her relationship with Paul, the sexual encounter, at home, her not wanting to be his mother? The story sold to the tabloids, the reaction at work? The money, the irony that Kim had told Paul to sell the story? The support of the women, Alison and her having to step down and photocopy, a future in herself, with her family, with Paul? An empathetic portrait of a transsexual and her experience?
5.Paul, defending Karl at school, not being able to keep down jobs, messages, the crash? The encounter with Kim, curiosity, going out, the questions? His being drunk, exposing himself, the arrest? Being desperate, trying to find Kim, wanting her to go to court? The discussions with the defence solicitor? His response to her coming, the night with her, staying with her? Selling the story, the results – and his future?
6.Jean, wanting to use Kim’s flat, her relationship with her husband, his being in the army, accepting Jean’s child, his love for his wife and the child? His anger, taking it out on the recruits and their training, the authorities coming down on him? Calming down, the reconciliation with Jean? Acceptance of Kim?
7.Pamela, at work, kind, supporting Kim? Alison and her ambitions? The job, the cards, the verses, the phone calls?
8.The defence solicitor, her support of Paul, getting the help of Kim?
9.A gallery of ordinary London characters, cab drivers, the pubs, shops, workplace, the courts?
10.Insight into a problem and characters that ordinary people generally don't come across?
