Southern Comfort (2001)

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Who knew that transsexual people had their own annual convention? This fascinating documentary takes us to the Southern Comfort gathering, which at one point honors the protagonist of this film, Robert "Grandpa" Eads, a female-to-male transsexual in the final stages of cervical cancer.We also get to meet Eads's surrogate family of other transsexuals -- his girlfriend Lola Cola, son Maxwell and his girlfriend, and friend Cas. Along the way we encounter Eads's biological kin. His embarrassed parents insist on having their faces blotted out. His son at times refers to Robert as Mom -- yet says that if he married he'd have wanted Robert to serve as his best man. Representing the new generation, Robert's adorable young grandson is unconditionally accepting. The folksy, pipe-smoking Eads is a delightful personality, completely at home in his own skin. He sensitively describes the Catch-22 dilemma of being born into the wrong sex -- one faces the choice of remaining miserable in that gender, or making everyone one loves miserable by getting surgery to make the change. He describes the rejection he felt within his own family of origin, quoting his mother as saying: Why couldn't you have just remained gay? The movie touches on other problems, such as prejudice in the wider community, including among medical professionals, the financial challenges of obtaining sexual-reassignment surgery, and the presence of medical quacks who may not be qualified to perform the transformation.This gently educative work is well worth viewing. RIP, Mr. Eads.

This has to be the best documentary I have ever seen. Just a matter of time when someone will do a movie about Robert Eads, the most extraordinary southern cowboy. This documentary could have been mediocre if it wasn't for him, his incredible wit, optimism and intelligence. A real man from head to toes who ironically died of a widespread ovarian cancer, primarily because no doctor wanted to treat a transsexual. It is a marvelous real life drama that doesn't preach, it simply delivers the story that deeply touches you, points out the stupidity of prejudices and inhumanity of American health system and rises questions about what gender really means.

Set in the verdant yet somehow stark landscape of rural Georgia this film opens with the female-to-male transgendered subject of the film, Robert Eades, stating: `This is Bubba country.' And he is SO accurate.This powerful film profiles transgendered people in very poor and very rural Georgia. Most of them are faced with poor or non-existent medical care by `professionals' that are, more often than not, embarrassed by their patients. These are people that are just trying to find a little happiness for themselves and receive what should be basic human rights -- and time and again they are denied those rights.While the name of the film is "Southern Comfort," that is also the name of the annual transgender conference/convention held in Georgia. The subjects of this film survive from one day to the next for the few days each year when they know that they are not alone. As Robert states: `For once we outnumber THEM.'Robert is in the nearly unbelievable position of being a man dying of ovarian cancer. He was unable to receive proper medical care because of the ignorance and uncaring of the doctors that were available to him. They all seemed to feel that he would be an embarrassment to their ‘medical practices.'There are horrific examples of surgical horror stories and botched operations -- with the ghastly scars to prove it.The interviews with the families of the subjects of the films are especially revealing:The son of Robert Eades (from when he was a woman) can't quite keep straight whether to refer to him as a man or as his `mom.' But it is clear that he loves him deeply.The father of Robert says: `I had a dream that my daughter would marry a man that would be President of the United States.' Never imagining for a moment that his daughter could be president. Because in his narrow and limited mind women cannot be president just as women cannot be men. He refused to have his face shown when he was interviewed.What shines out above all else in this transcendent film about a man's life is the wisdom, wit, humour and charm of a man who the system failed. Remarkably, a man that showed no overt bitterness right up to his death in a hospice.Lola Cola -- Roberts partner and a male-to-female transgendered person -- closes the film by saying: `Nature delights in diversity ... why can't human beings?'

Another great documentary shown on HBO's America Undercover series.I found this to be an ultimately sad film.It made me appreciate my own life and glad I am happy in my own skin.I wish these people happiness.....somewhere in their lives.