"For the first few minutes of Chilean director Sebastián Lelio’s “A Fantastic Woman” (Una mujer fantástica), life seems to be pretty sweet for its transgender heroine, Marina.
An aspiring singer who earns her living working as a waitress, she is involved with Orlando, a successful older businessman. They adore each other and are deeply committed to building a future together.
This blissful existence is turned upside down in an instant when Orlando dies from a sudden aneurysm.
This blissful existence is turned upside down in an instant when Orlando dies from a sudden aneurysm.
Instead of being treated with compassion, Marina is mistrusted by hospital staff, suspected of wrongdoing by legal authorities investigating the death, and viewed as an embarrassment and an interloper by Orlando’s family – who consider her an “aberration” and immediately begin pressuring her to move out of the apartment she shared with him.
It’s a stark reality with which Lelio’s film confronts us. The notion of unexpectedly losing a partner is dreadful enough, but to be faced with hostility and prejudice in the wake of such tragedy, to be denied the right to grieve the loss – even actively prevented from doing so – is a nightmare most of us are loath to imagine.
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In many aspects, this film contains some of the same paranoia's older transgender women face as they age. An example is myself who wonders what will become of me in a nursing home and will all of a sudden I will lose all the hard earned LGBT gender equality I worked for.
At my age, I am closer to the fact than farther.
I am now looking forward to the rest of my life and all the changes expected and unexpected."