XXY (2007)

This is the dramatic story of a intersexed 15-year-old. She lives with her parents, who have to cope with the challenges of her medical condition.

Director:

Lucía Puenzo

Writers:

Lucía Puenzo (screenplay), Sergio Bizzio (short story "Cinismo")

Stars:

Ricardo Darín, Valeria Bertuccelli, Germán Palacios

22 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ricardo Darín	...	Kraken
Valeria Bertuccelli	...	Suli
Germán Palacios	...	Ramiro
Carolina Pelleritti	...	Erika (as Carolina Peleritti)
Martín Piroyansky	...	Alvaro
Inés Efron	...	Alex
Guillermo Angelelli	...	Juan
César Troncoso	...	Washington
Jean Pierre Reguerraz	...	Esteban
Ailín Salas	...	Roberta
Luciano Nóbile	...	Vando (as Luciano Martín Nóbile)
Lucas Escariz	...	Saul

Storyline

In a small coastal town of fishermen in Uruguay, the biologist Kraken works and lives in a house at the sea side with his wife Suli and their aggressive fifteen year-old daughter Alex. When Suli welcomes her former best friend Erika that comes with her husband, the surgeon Ramiro and their teenage son Alvaro to spend a couple of days with her family, Kraken learns that his wife invited Ramiro to operate Alex. Meanwhile Alex and Alvaro feel attracted by each other; however, Alvaro finds that Alex is hermaphrodite and she finds that Alvaro is gay. But the troubled and outcast Alex has the right to choose what gender she wants for her.

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Plot Keywords:

15 year old | pet fish | masturbation | gender | reading | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

MySpace page Official site [Argentina] (Spanish, English and French)

Country:

Argentina Spain France

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

2 May 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

XXY - Uomini, donne o tutti e due?

Filming Locations:

Piriápolis, Maldonado, Uruguay

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$3,241 (USA) (2 May 2008)

Gross:

$46,011 (USA) (17 October 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Historias Cinematograficas Cinemania, Wanda Visión S.A., Pyramide Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

86 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

On September 27, 2007, XXY was chosen to represent Argentina at the Oscars, for the Best Foreign Language Film category. In a rare sweep, it was also chosen to represent Argentina at Spain's Goya Awards, for Best Foreign Film in Spanish. The tradition has been for two separate films to be sent to one of the awards each. The runner-up this year, in both cases, was La señal, also starring (and co-directed by) Ricardo Darín.

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Goofs

In the scene that Alex, Alvaro and Vando are smoking and drinking by the fire, Alex and Vando stay up to pee while the camera shows a quiet Alvaro. For a moment, you can still hear the sound of the liquid moving inside the bottle as if he was drinking, while the camera shows that he is sitting still and the bottle is on the ground.

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Quotes

Alex: What do you regret the most? Not seeing me again, or not having seen it?

User Reviews

Contemporary way of looking at Hermaphrodism.

I Just saw this new movie from the Argentinian cinema and found it deeply moving.

To me the idea of showing the inner struggle of an hermaphrodite with such a profound respect was a First. I never saw a movie treating this issue before --not at all in a Hollywood product!!-- and never so seriously and delicately.

Not only his/her struggle, but both his/hers parents. His/hers parents lived 15 years (the child's present age as shown in the movie) of sheer torment. What could they do about the problem? Where could they go to talk about it without raising eyebrows? - the world can be terribly cruel with anyone "different".

I remember only one scene with an albino hermaphrodite in a frontal nude scene in a Fellini movie -"Satyricon"- But there, it was used only as shock value. A freak case. Not here! This is a very humane movie, very tender in it's treatment of a very delicate problem (Could it be because the director is a woman?).

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

And the beautiful, truly beautiful ending! in the past a character like this one was always killed at the end: It drowned, it fell in an abyss. It perished, no matter how. It did not have the right to live.

It seems that now we have grown to be more mature somehow; in this movie, not only the hermaphrodite refuses to be operated on, to become either a man or a woman, NO! she decides to remain what she is: A naturally born human being with BOTH SEXES. And really...Why not?? Great film! great, GREAT film!

*END OF SPOILERS*

Technically though, I found a couple of faults: Although my mother tongue is Spanish, after a while I had to put the subtitles on, since almost all the actors (Mainly Ricardo Darin -the father of the hermaphrodite) go through the movie mumbling their words, sort of like Marlon Brando used to do thanks to the Actor's Studio's Method, and I was missing part of the dialogue (My hearing is excellent, but the straining wasn't worth it, and I was using headphones!); also they talked in extremely low voices, so, since the sea rumble or the rain noise are on most of the time as background sound (They are on location in an Uruguayan beach town), they drowned the actors voices most of the time.

I imagine the director wanted to give the feeling of casual, nonchalant conversation, fine, but you can come up with a more efficient sound quality employing other ways, not as it was done in this movie (Maybe they didn't have enough budget, or the sound wasn't top drawer, I don't know).

The other fault was the length of some scenes..., it looked like one of those old 60s movies from Sweden, where the actors were shown on profile, looking to the right into the horizon for two full minutes without speaking a word or moving at all.

But these two faults are minor really. This film makes you think about the very wrong and terribly unjust ways of contemporary society when looking at minorities. Excellent all actors and a superb director.