FELICITY Huffman, one of the more desperate of the Desperate Housewives, may have missed out on the Best Actress Oscar to Reese Witherspoon a few weeks back but she must have known, as soon as she signed up for Transamerica, that she was a sewn on certain

FELICITY Huffman, one of the more desperate of the Desperate Housewives, may have missed out on the Best Actress Oscar to Reese Witherspoon a few weeks back but she must have known, as soon as she signed up for Transamerica, that she was a sewn on certainty for at least a nomination.

This is one of those roles that screams out for recognition and Huffman does a very good job.

She plays Bree, a pre-operative male-to-female transsexual. Bree, who is about to undergo the final surgery to make her a proper woman, discovers that she has a teenage son (Kevin Zegers) from her days as Stanley and her therapist insists that she resolves any issues surrounding him before the surgery goes ahead.

So Bree travels from LA to New York to bail her son out of jail (he is a drug dealing drop out who dreams of becoming a gay porn star) with the intention of dropping him off with his stepfather, while concealing the fact she is in fact both a man and his father. Naturally, things don't go as smoothly as that.

Huffman's performance aside, it's a pretty average movie. Nicely enough made and played but a bit obvious on the liberal moralising and somewhat clichéd.

However, that central performance is good enough that it makes Transamerica well worth seeing.