Movie Review: Soldier's Girl
The movie Soldier's Girl originally aired on Showtime a while back -- I can remember seeing ads for it back when I was watching QaF with jic, so a couple of years ago, really. Anyway, I noticed that jic had it in her dvd collection and decided to check it out.
I've since rewatched it twice, and one of those times was with jic.
It's a really good movie. It's based on the true story of Barry Winchell, a private in the airbourne infantry, who fell in love with a transgender showgirl named Calpernia Addams.
It's a tragedy -- we get told that in the first five minutes. Barry Winchell died in 1999, was killed by one of his fellow soldiers. Killed for being in love, killed because of stupid bigotry and hate. This movie made me cry all three times that I watched it. The acting is superb, and the characters are realistically complicated and not at all watered down. The relationship between Barry and Calperina is lovingly drawn, and I really felt their connection through-out the film.
And in seeing the interviews with the real Calpernia, it really is obvious that she is a woman, no matter what genitalia she happened to be born with. This is something that I've previously understood intellectually, but this movie brought it home to me in a very emotional way.
Exceedingly well-done.