GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

NOVEMBER 21, 1997

Evenings Out

TS girls need love, too

Unlikely romance puts transsexuals in a positive light-sort of.

Reviewed by Dawn Leach Different for Girls is the story of a transsexual and her rocky romance with a rebelwithout-a-clue.

Kim Foyle is a well-adjusted and successful transsexual, with an upper-level job designing greeting cards.

Paul Prentice is a motorcycle delivery driver with more than a little macho bravado, and a girlfriend that looks right at home on his bike. Everyone just calls him Prentice. He is irresponsible and insensitive.

Prentice and Kim were best friends as children. As adults, they seem like an unlikely match, but the chemistry is definitely there especially for Kim. She is very attracted to Prentice and wants badly to impress him. He finds her exotic, and is troubled by the erotic edge to his growing fascination with her.

"I'm straight, you know," he tells her. She replies that she is too.

Different for Girls gives a sympathetic portrayal of a transsexual that is perhaps just a step up from the kind of sympathetic portrayal considered a breakthrough for gay men before the 1980s. Kim is undeni-

ably a tragic figure, but at least she is presented in a positive light, someone the audience is supposed to like. She does have it together enough to hold down a decent job and keep a good relationship with her sister. Actor Steven Mackintosh plays Kim Foyle with grace, and she makes an attractive and compelling character.

While I couldn't help rooting for Kim to get what she wanted, I would have liked to see Kim aim higher. Certainly someone with her intelligence and style could find someone more worthy of her company. Prentice seems to be oblivious to the pain and trouble he brings to Kim's life. He selfishly puts her in danger through his self-absorbed antics.

A subplot to the story involves the marital problems of Jean, Kim's sister. Jean's husband finds Kim to be a good listener, and he confides in her about his marriage and about his fertility problems. As Kim grapples with Prentice's difficulty accepting her as a woman, she certainly can relate

to how her brother-in-law feels about being a man "with no way to prove it."

This movie is perhaps a refreshing change from films that have portrayed transsexuals as psychopaths. The subplot about Jean seems to send a message that "straight" people have problems too.

Next to unbalanced and volatile Prentice, it becomes even more apparent that Kim is a reasonably stable person. In fact, it is hard to believe that someone as successful and levelheaded as Kim would take an interest in a loser like Prentice.

Prentice is completely wrapped up in himself. He is immersed in his struggle with his attraction to a transsexual, and the homophobic panic that he feels about it. He is so preoccupied with it that neither his suspicious girlfriend's concerns about his fidelity nor Kim's pain over his ambivalence seem to even register in his

mind. He even puts his job in jeopardy through his reckless disregard for anyone but himself.

Nevertheless, Kim continues to try to win his attention. When she manages to get a date with him, she dresses up and prepares an elegant meal for him. Prentice arrives late and drunk, then proceeds to wander uninvited through her home and rummage through her personal belongings.

He acts like a tourist in her home, asking her probing questions about her sex change. When he finds himself becoming aroused, he panics and leaves abruptly, then makes a scene in front of her neighbors.

Prentice's antics result in a trip to jail for both of them, complete with abuse at the hands of a renegade cop. To top it off, Prentice refuses the police's offer to drop the charges, and demands that Kim testify against the police. In the end, she shows what she's made of, surprising everyone.

Different for Girls opened Nov. 14 at the Little Art Theater in Yellow Springs, and opens Nov. 21 at the Cedar-Lee in Cleveland Heights, and Nov. 28 at the Drexel East or Grandview in Columbus.

Prentice (Rupert Graves, left) and Kim (Steven Mackintosh)