Daniela Vega Shows Off A Fantastic Woman

 It’s about time I brought some international flavour to this blog. And I wanted to see one Foreign Film nominee before the Oscars. This was the one available. A Fantastic Woman is a Chilean film from director Sebastián Lelio that tells an emotional story of grief and identity with tender and intimate detail that’s sure to make bigger stars of its director and especially lead actress. 

Marina Vidal (Daniela Viga) is a young trans woman in Santiago, who’s in a relationship with an older man Orlando (Francisco Reyes). When he suddenly becomes ill and dies, his family begin shunning her, forbidding her from attending the funeral or wake. In addition to this, she is treated with suspicion and disrespect by the doctors and police, forcing her on an emotional journey to affirm herself as a woman.

The narrative of this movie is one that hits home for a lot of trans men and women. It presents an unfiltered look at the way society views them, from the small discretions to the larger acts of transphobia. It’s the typical stuff: her being treated like an anomaly, the family greeting her with suspicion and disgust, various characters insisting on calling her by her former name. The film does a good job of showing how this effects Marina, but subtly. She rarely lets the pain show on her face but rather stands her ground. Though not as prominent a point of contention as her gender identity, the age gap between her and Orlando is also raised, which given the fact he had severe bruises on his body when taken to the hospital, leads some to suspect she was being abused and struck back in self-defence. She’s forced to contend with all this attention, a lot of it directed at characteristics that should be innocuous, and in a couple moments it can be distressing to watch. We see throughout the film her self-consciousness about her body, which makes it all the more uncomfortable when she’s forced to submit to a physical. There’s one scene of outright abuse that’s intolerable, and it makes you wonder why she appears to be so passive in face of all this persecution. But when you think back to the title and how passionate she is in her identity, perhaps she doesn’t want to let it get to her. Following this scene, she is seen going to a club and dancing, and just indulging in her femininity. Indeed, this is the thrust of her arc: her journey through doubt and discrimination to assert herself unapologetically as a woman. It’s certainly a fascinating, endearing story, and Marina just as fascinating and endearing a character. This personal story is supplemented by a minor mystery, as Marina wonders what a particular key found in Orlando’s possession could mean, the result of which is certainly curious. But the focus is smart to stay on her.

In so doing, A Fantastic Woman exposes us to Daniela Vega giving a powerful and no doubt deeply personal performance. You get the impression, this isn’t very new to her, that she’s been through some of the same trials as her character. She wonderfully carries this movie with pent-up emotion and sorrow that’s just enough apparent to be tangible in almost every scene, allowing you to feel her hurt alongside her. Her anger, sadness, and frustration is just waiting to boil over, and when it does, she performs it with apt satisfaction. She’s also a really good singer, as is demonstrated in the movie’s opening and closing scenes. It’s a dedicated, engaging, and sensitive performance that would have gotten an Oscar nomination (and should have) had Meryl Streep not been in a movie this year. Francisco Reyes is not in the movie long, though his character appears in intermittent moments to Marina. However for the brief screen-time it’s given, the relationship Orlando and Marina share is incredibly sweet and believable. It’s clearly a loving romance with history, and makes for one of the most likeable of 2017. In the supporting cast, Nicolás Saavedra and Aline Küppenheim give fittingly despicable performances as Orlando’s relations, harassing Marina about giving up Orlando’s apartment and dog. However Luis Gnecco plays the one family member to treat Marina with dignity, and he’s good in his arc where we see him attempt to overcome his timidity and defend her to the rest.

With it’s very timely subject matter and caring presentation, A Fantastic Woman offers a glimpse at both a common and a unique personal struggle. Common in that it shows the kind of discrimination and judgment in its harshest forms that trans women go through all too often; but unique in the specific situation of Marina having to deal with these things alongside the passing of her much older lover. Ultimately, it’s just a great character film -one that takes an honest and soulful look at this figure’s sad story, to let her emerge the formidable and fantastic woman the title alludes to.