Both
Reel Affirmations 2005
Review by Kristina Campbell
Rating: 
(3 out of 5)
Tuesday, 10/18/2005, 9:30 PM
Feature presentation, $6 at Cecile Goldman Theater at the DCJCC
Spanish with English subtitles
BOTH IS A somewhat bizarre tale of woman’s discovery of a lifelong secret that unlocks the mystery of why an earnest bisexual like herself can’t manage to achieve orgasm with men or women. A photo album that arrives in the mail from Peru jumpstarts her curiosity and sends her seeking the true story of what really happened to her brother, who supposedly died when she was a baby and he was 3 years old. Along the way, she meets a young child named Morgan, who is a girl but pees standing up — Morgan is a hermaphrodite whose mother has chosen to leave the child biologically intact rather than letting a doctor choose what sex organs belong.
The film is interesting but poorly acted and somewhat crudely made. The main character’s hair style throughout most of the movie — a wig — is distractingly ugly and her colleague, a gay man who introduces her to Morgan when he’s trying to figure out if the child’s mother should be his egg donor and surrogate, is unconvincing and one-dimensional. But the film raises some important questions about gender and contains some heartfelt scenes when exploring the issues around surgical ”correction” of hermaphroditism.
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