Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

An Exercise In Nonsense

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

In the opening scene there are pictures of the "perfect couple" in the newspapers, celebrating their anniversary of over twenty five years - which is a very long time. They must know each other inside out, every positives or negatives they might have. They live in a beautiful house, they have sweet children that are full of life and healthy. They seem to have everything in order and shows the fantasy like lifestyle of any couples future. However this story has one of the most shocking story lines I have ever seen in a movie. The husband has been hiding his true identity this whole time and confesses that he is a transgender woman, trapped inside of a mans body. This is highly shocking and the wife cannot accept this at first. Her reaction to his confession, although it is violent and cruel, it is definitely understanding. After being with the man for so long, she was completely convinced that she knew everything there is to know about him. She feels as if she has been lied to through out the whole relationship and her life is falling apart. Her gradual acceptance is also heartfelt and warm, as we see her suffering yet trying desperately to understand her husbands destiny, especially after witnessing him trying to commit suicide from the pressure he could not deal with anymore. This movie showed how natural it was for person to become transgender, and that it is not something they choose for themselves. Everyone is born with a gender, and in this case the physical aspect and the mental aspect were switched, and mismatched. How the wife, his co- worker, his boss all reacted show how real life society would react to this kind of situation. People are not educated to understand there are "different" types of people, and that they are normal in their own way. We are educated to believe that it is an abnormality, a disease, and a disorder instead of trying to reach out and understand their situation. The bullying that the main character experienced in his manly, work place also reflect on the amount of rejection society has towards indifferences. However we see that the unconditional love of the wife and the daughter, and gradually the son after some time, reveal that all the husband needed was support to get rid of all the anxieties he had been feeling. The indifferences did not change a person, it actually made the people around him more open minded and accepting to differences between people. This movie really opened up my world as well and helped me see something that I was taught was a type of "retardation" as well. Watching this movie helped me realize that we need to learn to love and accept each others indifferences no matter how hard it is.

Normal is drama love story that deals with a solid foundation of a married couple which became complicated after the husband (Tom Wilkinson) confess that he believes that he was a woman that is just trapped in a man's body. I personally think that this film is very realistic, it showed how this gender identity problem can occurred even to normal people, couple and families. As for this film, Roy and Irma portrayed a very loving and religious couple, who would have thought that this kind of problem can possible happen even to almost perfect couple after more than two decades of being together. In this film, the gender identity problem was the main conflict but as you get to watch the film up to the latter part, you will realize that it's not only about the gender problem, it's more on acceptance and love for each other. It showed that no matter the circumstances, Irma accepted Roy for who he is and who he wanted to be, she loved him and supported him all the way until Roy eventually felt the self- satisfaction he always wanted. Overall this film was an awesome piece, a very touching and inspiring story for all the couple out there who are going through this tough situation in life.

"Normal" took me completely by surprise. Usually, a television only broadcasted movie means that this film wasn't even good enough to be shown in the theater. But that's not the case at all. "Normal" tells the story of a man who should have been born a woman. At first, the premise doesn't seem so different than "A Beautiful Boxer". However, what makes this story special is that the main character is a middle-aged man who has been married for 20 years, has two children, and a solid job where he is in line for a promotion. You can only imagine the reaction his wife, co-workers, and the community had when they found out the secret he's been hiding for decades. That's the premise, and as you follow along with everything that happens on screen, you'll be amazed at how fluidly and realistically it flows.This is a perfect example of a "what if". What if this happened in your neighborhood? What if this was your uncle or father? What would you do and what would happen around you? Honestly, whatever happens, it probably wouldn't be too different than what happens in "Normal".A lot of the credit goes to the actors here. Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson give an amazing performance as husband and wife. The kids do an exceptional job, as well. To back it up writer and director Jane Anderson plots out this movie painstakingly, lingering at just the right moments and pulling away at just the right times.Overall, I highly recommend "Normal" to everyone. If you consider this a niche movie just because it handles transgender themes then your missing out because this is one of the most touching and pure love stories I have ever seen.

Exceptional cable-movie with a serious, touchy subject not treated with the requisite hand-wringing or soap-box speeches; a film about a family man's gradual move towards having a sex-change which is prickly and prodding instead of melancholy. Jane Anderson adapted her own play and directed this lovely, touching story of a farm equipment factory worker living in middle America, a husband and the father of two, who breaks a lifetime of agonizing silence and finally tells his wife he feels he was born in the wrong body. Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange approach their early scenes a bit too anxiously (and the film's tone wavers in a sea of question marks), but Anderson is not interested in stunts or gimmicks, and it quickly becomes apparent that everyone's heart is in this. Hayden Panettiere is terrific as the couple's pubescent daughter, however most of the scenes with Joe Sikora as their rough-hewn son fail to come off (Sikora's half-comic dialogue doesn't help). Fortunately, Wilkinson and Lange bloom in and conform to their roles, and by the final act we are hanging onto their every word. Anderson judges their scenes very shrewdly, and her sense of humor is welcomed even if it takes about 30 minutes for the viewer to catch up to her rhythm. Blessedly free of big "issues", this is a family drama that stands apart not for being a hysterical document, but for being a human story of self-respect and respect for others. Marvelous.