Argentina
2007
91 min.
Genre/Subjects:Bisexual, Drama, Gender, Intersex, Youth
Language: Spanish (English Sub-Titles)

Trailer

Puberty can be tough on any teenager. But for intersex teen Alex things are made even more complicated by the presence of an extra chromosome. Will she be forced to make a choice she doesn’t want to make?

First-time director Lucia Puenzo has created a film as beautiful, tough and unpredictable as the rocky Uruguayan shoreline on which it is set. The moody and moving portrait she paints against that backdrop — with help from talented cinematographer Natasha Braier and fearless young actress Ines Flores— is like nothing you’ve seen in any other film.

XXY is a portrait of Alex, a 15-year-old coping with an extended puberty made more complicated by the presence of an extra chromosome and, according to her mother, a few extra parts. Born intersex, Alex has been brought up female. But now that her body is changing— and she’s faced with the prospect of “corrective” surgery that her father refused to allow when she was born— she’s beginning to wonder.

Under Puenzo’s sensitive direction, Flores, who played the female corner of the teen triangle in Glue, brings Alex to the screen in an understated but powerful performance that will leave you thinking about the nature of gender and the choices we are forced to make.

• Mark Page