Short summary of opinion: good performances, not much of a storyline.

The film was previously on the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which should give you some idea of the themes and content. Basically it is about a young woman who thought she should have been born male, and so lived as if she had been.

This includes falling in love with, and making out with, various young women.

She hooks up with a bunch of young people from her (lower) end of the social scale, and generally has a good time with them. No one seems to work but they all survive somehow, spending most of the time socialising.

The problems arise when there is a love triangle between her, a girl she is after, and one of the guys who is after the same girl.

One day, one of the other girls, who had a crush on her, discovers to her horror that the person she thought was a guy has menstrual periods, and brings this shocking news to the attention of the rest of the crowd. From that point on you know the story is not going to end happily.

One thing leads to another as the guys try to determine the truth in the crudest way possible, before taking eventual revenge on the poor hero(ine).

Hilary Swank won a Golden Globe for her work here, and both she and her female love interest are up for Oscars.

A valid criticism raised by a foreign reviewer is that while the film does try to portray the tragic end of a young life, we never get to look inside her head, to see what drove her to act the way that she did. Surely she knew that she could not get away with it forever? Why then pursue such a dangerous life style? Or was it the only way she knew how to be happy?

The film will probably appeal more to women than to men.

-- Ian Douglas