Vega shines in drama about losing a loved one
Daniela Vega’s stunning performance in A Fantastic Woman lives up to promise
Film titles are mendacious things. The Lone Ranger had a sidekick, who was actually the star. A Clockwork Orange had no oranges, mechanical or otherwise. And I think you’ll find Tom Cruise’s next Mission to be difficult, not actually impossible.
What a relief, then, to find a movie that lives up to its name. A Fantastic Woman, co-written by Gonzalo Maza and director Sebastián Lelio (Gloria, 2013), is about Marina, a fantastic woman, albeit a deeply unhappy one.
She has every right to be. In the opening scenes, the waitresslounge singer, played by Daniela Vega, watches as her older boyfriend, Orlando, falls ill, and down a flight of stairs. She rushes him to the Santiago hospital, but it’s too late.
The doctors are suspicious of her. So are the police, whom they call in to investigate the death. And Orlando’s family wants her out of his apartment pronto, and forbids her to attend the funeral.
Marina is a trans woman. So is Vega, the actress who plays her. Apparently Lelio first approached her to help research the part, and ended up giving it to her. Being trans is part of the story — and the reason Orlando’s ex is frosty, and his son physically hostile. But it’s not really what the movie is about. Lelio has crafted an extraordinary film about someone dealing with the grief of a lost loved one, in which the someone just happens to be trans. It’s transcendent.
The camera stays close to the main character, as she struggles stoically with her loss, and with indignities most people in her place wouldn’t have to suffer. A detective from the city’s sex crimes unit seems concerned ( but is she?) that Marina might have been in an abusive relation- ship, and forces her to undergo a physical examination, which includes photos of every part of her body.
We don’t see everything in that scene, and one’s curiosity (guilty) speaks volumes about the way society reacts to the trans community. “Did you get the operation?” Orlando’s belligerent son asks bluntly at one point. Marina’s reply: “You don’t ask that.”
The film is a solid drama, but Lelio sneaks in a few scenes of magical metaphors. One shot finds the miserable Marina literally stopped in her tracks by the force of a wind blowing down the street.
Then there are the more humdrum moments, no less keenly felt. Aretha Franklin singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman on Marina’s car stereo. Or the strange and beautiful scene in which two workers are carrying a giant pane of mirrored glass across the street, and our protagonist stops to reflect on her reflection. (And when was the last time you saw a giant pane of glass in a movie without someone crashing through it, or at least threatening to?)
In the end, Marina literally finds her voice, and figuratively comes to terms with her grief. It might not count as catharsis for the viewer, but like everything else in this Oscar-nominated foreign-language picture, it feels deeply real. The movie may be fiction, but it still tells a true story.