Transamerica (2005)

Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives") has the role of a lifetime as a man about to undergo a transsexual operation in the indie comedy "Transamerica." It's a hell of a performance -- Huffman disappears under a good deal of makeup and a man's voice striving to be feminine to play the part of Bree (formerly Stanley), who finds herself traveling cross country to bail her previously unknown son, Toby (Kevin Zegers), out of a New York jail. The two then drive (well, for the most) back to California, Toby unaware that the woman claiming to be a Christian missionary is his father. A good deal of the stretched-out road trip is corny and sophomoric, especially a run in with Toby's step-father, but Hoffman's stellar acting grounds the film and makes you sympathetic to Bree's plight. Hoffman was robbed of her Oscar. B