Romeos (2011)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Absolutely Fantastic

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I have seen quite a few movies dealing with MTF trans, but rarely one dealing with FTM. So needless to say, I was very excited to see this. And sadly, I couldn't be anymore disappointed. This film feels like a straight up gay male film, thanks to a miscasting of epic proportions. While I'm sure Rick Okon is a fine actor, he has no business playing the role he was cast in. There are so many real transgendered actors and actresses out there, struggling to get work like the rest. And yet, they are denied roles that were basically made for them! It seems very hypocritical for a film that wants to express the struggle of being transgendered. They literally slapped prosthetic breasts on a biological male and called it a day. There are no nuances in Rick Okon's performance to give us any clue that we are watching a pre-op transgendered male struggling with his identity. Not even seeing his breasts can fool me into thinking for the briefest second that he is trans.On top of that, the story was sub par and resembles that of a cheap cliché gay romance flick more than anything. And even that's a stretch, as the romance here is so illogical and poorly done that I was actually irritated when they ended up together. His supposed love interest spends half the film taunting and teasing him, and otherwise humiliating him in public. And then suddenly a light bulb goes off in his head, and we're suddenly supposed to believe that he is instantly redeemed for his transgressions? I don't think so. It is incredibly fake, lacking any semblance of heart.I also have many objections to the portrayal of trans life and emotions. As a trans person myself, it saddened me to see how pertinent questions and issues were just glossed over to make the film a bit more easily digestible to hetero cis gendered viewers. In a perfect world, this film would clue in cis gendered people as to what many trans people experience and struggle with and feel, while making any fellow trans viewers feel a sense of solace and understanding. I don't expect every LGBT movie to be a "Boy's Don't Cry" style tragedy, but I do expect portrayals of LGBT issues to be respected. This film has no respect and no interest in portraying any issues or struggles a real transman faces in the world. Lukas is clearly struggling with his transition, and struggling to find his place in the world as a man who still has his female parts. Yet none of the film's events explore that. In fact, the film contradicts itself by not exploring those feelings, trading it in for cheap pseudo-conflict in the form of the mild teasing and taunting he faces. He is striving to be as masculine as possible, and yet the possible conflict he faces while being attracted to a man, which is by the general consensus of society considered "unmasculine", is never really even brought up. It is a simple, watered down portrayal of trans life that I would only recommend to cis heterosexuals that want to watch a film about a minority, without having to ponder their own beliefs and the harsh realities many trans people face everyday.It's more or less a gay film, with a lead who happens to be trans. It'd be a tad more excusable if there was at least some good drama or romance to be found. And there is not. This could have been an amazing film, and instead it is cheap and even mildly offensive.

Romeos focuses on Lukas, a trans boy who is living in a dorm as he does some sort of community work. The film focuses on Lukas' relationships with his friend Ine, who knew him before his transition, and Fabio a man who Lukas has mutual romantic feelings towards, as well as Lukas' struggles and achievements during transition. Romeos is an enjoyable film, though it contains some homophobia and a fair amount of transphobia. As far as I can tell Lukas is played by a cisgender man, which is not ideal. The film has a happy ending, and is very effective in portraying Lukas' dysphoria and anxiety about passing as a cisgender man. (spoiler)There is a short scene which involves attempted rape. (end spoiler) Would not recommend for anyone in a fragile emotional position, due to excessive amounts of transphobia shown by certain characters. Nevertheless Romeos is an enjoyable movie, the narrative treats its protagonist with respect and dignity, and the acting and production value is good quality.(Spoiler) Contains miss-gendering, dead naming, upper body nudity, attempted rape, t-slur, other transphobic and homophobic language (end spoiler)

I liked this movie, but casting Rick Okon as Lukas was a serious problem for me. I never for one second believed he was or had ever been female, so I couldn't help relating to that character as a man and only a man.It's a sharp contrast to the casting 15 years ago of Steven Mackintosh in the mirror-image role of Kim in Different for Girls. Kim is a transgendered male-to-female, and Mackintosh is SO believable as a woman that I had to do considerable research to ascertain that the actor himself wasn't transgendered. He wasn't, and, in fact, he doesn't look the least bit feminine in real life, which makes his casting as Kim all the more remarkable.Romeos is a pretty good movie anyway, but it doesn't depict the transgender experiences of the character as successfully as it does his experiences as a man. The movie would have been better with someone else cast as Lukas or if Lukas had just been a gay man, which is how he comes across anyway.In order to make sense of the character Okon was portraying, I had to ignore all the transgender issues, which simply were absurd for that entirely male character, and I'm sure that's not what the director intended.

I've literally just returned from the screening of this movie and it's in my opinion one of the best titles out there dealing with the topic of transsexuality and even homosexuality.What is important and what this movie does so well, is dealing with the topic so problematic for any transgendered person that was ever attracted to someone of the same gender; which is, how to explain to others that being attracted to a woman doesn't make you a man - but feeling like a man does. Rick Okon does an amazing job - up to googling him I couldn't find out whether he is male or female in real life (the perfectly done breasts confused me) and I'm ashamed that I was focusing on this so much because it just shows once more how binary-minded we are about sex and gender, even though this topic is personal to me. However - for not being transgendered himself, the actor really gets the pain, the frustration, everything that is behind the feeling of not fitting in such a basic category system.I was also pleased with the development of other characters. In a love story, a view-point (and actually the whole life) of someone's best friend can get easily overlooked and I like how they dealt with it. The role of Fabio was also great and the scene with the trans-girl singing was just beautiful.Basically, if this movie would go on for another two hours, I would keep staring.