Different for Girls

Aside from any psycho-analytical considerations (in which I have no competence), this film really worked for me. I typically give a wide berth to pictures of this ilk, but I was really captivated by the sense that these characters were really living the circumstances in which they found themselves. I'm not going to blather on about how relevant blah blah, but the fact is that Nobody is immune from the possibility that an experience like this might present itself in real life, and it is thought-provoking to reflect on how it might affect ME. This is a complex subject, uncomfortable to many, but explored here in a way that was good sociology, good psychology, and damned fine cinema. Whatever your hang-ups are (or aren't), enjoy this film.

I am a male to female transsexual, and all I can say is this is the first and ONLY film I have seen handle this subject matter with taste and tact.

It sat on my shelf for two years before I watched it. I have seen this theme abused and twisted too many times, and I had assumed the worst. I'm very happy to say I got a very pleasant surprise.

Steven Makintosh did a wonderful job of playing Kim, and the fact that Kim's body is not "perfect" is a touch of reality seldom shown when movies or television fictionalize transition.

It was an honest approach, as opposed to the the usual "and far less realistic" sexy female actress that a Hollywood would have insisted on using.

Kim does not live as a "transgendered person" as is implied in some reviews but as a normal white collar woman in London, her old school friend comes into her structured and very low profile life and turns it upside down from emotional outbursts in restaurants, to a confrontation with the police.

His growing acceptance of Kim as a woman, and their growing relationship are wonderful to behold.

I don't want to give anything away, but from yet another person who's "been there" the film went between having me on the edge of my seat to having me in tears.

I cannot rate this film too highly.

"For people who NEED a nitpick, I think seeing Pauls girl friends reaction to goings on would have been good, she sort of just drops out of the plot and you never really know why"

In the opening scene of Different for Girls, Karl's boarding-school classmates are tormenting him for his effeminate nature. To his rescue comes friend and protector, Paul. Roll the opening credits, and flash to the next scene, 16 years in the future. It's the scene of a minor traffic accident and two of the individuals involved appear familiar to one another, but something is amiss. Paul, now a punkish motorcycle courier is one, but the other is demure, stylish, female.... its Karl. Paul and Karl (now Kim thanks to sex-change surgery) finally recognize one another and begin a relationship that slowly evolves to romance. The movie essentially chronicles the emotional journey of this odd-couple; and it's done with the proper mix of humor and drama. Well worth the rental.

This film hit me like a lightning bolt. It brought tears to my face and almost restored my faith in the human race. It tries to tell us that even the unthinkable can be done if we accept the combined power of feelings and imagination. We see people struggle with age old morals, their youth and upbringing. We can almost taste the bitter loneliness of the adapted transsexual as we can actually feel the pain of the struggling rebel that (almost) cannot accept the discrepancies between memory and perception, between love, lust and friendship, between what's done and not done. The actors make it all believable and enjoyable. They live the parts that show true bravery in crossing holy borders.

Alright...maybe this is too psychoanalytical an approach for the film, but here goes. Completely intrigued by the development of the principal characters and their evolving relationship, I took in 2 screenings of this film, as this movie is like an onion -which to get to the core of its subject and to understand its mystery, you have to peel off the multiple layers. A shower scene, a school picture, and a tabloid article are crucial clues that mold the dependency and sexual confusion that bonds the Prentice and Karl/Kim characters together. Their relationship has endured since highschool. We see a young man, who has subtly hidden his sex is embracing his feminine side in the schoolshower. Just before he gets the sh-- kicked out of him by homophobic schoolmates, another boy gallantly rescues the pretty boy from the mob. The audience immediately assumes that it is Karl who was questioning his sex in the shower--but disclosed in later pics, we discover that it is actually Prentice who was doing the introspection! Karl/Kim who could relate to the scene was the actual rescuer.

Portrayed as cool, bold, logical, and independent Karl/Kim presents him/herself with the unflappable reserve of a male personality, who feels dysfunctional with exterior male genitalia. Changing Karl to Kim remedies his/her warped body image, so that he can obtain the feminine exterior which appears so desirable. Expression of the dual conflicting natures can be seen throughout the film as she tries to overcompensate for this masculine interior of herself, by dressing in conservative woman's clothing and finding a feminine career as a Greeting card composer. Even her condo is done up in overtly feminine hues. Prentice is the antithesis of Kim. He is flighty, emotional, dependent and vulnerable. Contrasting Kim, he has an interior feminine nature that is contained in a masculine exterior that is repressed and hidden in a major bravado of masculinity. This is demonstrated with his embracing the fury of punk music, playing the leather-clad macho biker messenger, and keeping up an affront of being a boozer and rebel-rouser. Even Prentice's studio apt seems an exercise in testosterone proving, looking much like an uncleaned dormroom. Peeks at his interior femininity however do come through subtly- he fems up in a ruffled shirt for Kim, and wears a purple T-shirt under his workgarb. Look at Prentices enchanted glance to Kim, versus her patriarchial look back at him in the school pic. His eventual assertion that men are women with an added chromosone. In summation, Prentice completes Kim in that his feminine interior desires her masculine interior, while alternately his masculine exterior fulfills her (now) feminine exterior. If you don't look at Kim's Before/After photo in the tabloid, you don't realize that the character's gender roles were reversed in the school scenes. Kim becomes Prentice's rescuer once again when he emotionally loses it after their first date, and she must stand up again for him (this time it's police bullies) in court! When Kim strips for Prentice, It is like a mirror to the inside of his soul. Complex Film indeed!!!