Tangerine
Two trans sex workers, Christmas Eve in LA, shot on iPhones.
Trans leads playing trans characters, being funny rather than tragic.
- 2015
- 87 min
- 96% on Rotten Tomatoes
- 7.1 on IMDb
- #comedy
- #drama
- #trans
Our take
Sin-Dee gets out of jail, learns her boyfriend has been cheating, and spends Christmas Eve tearing across Hollywood to do something about it. Sean Baker shot it on three iPhones, which gives it a blown-out, sun-sick look that no camera package would have got near.
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor are the film, and Taylor in particular is very funny and then, in a donut shop at the end, quietly devastating. It refuses to make its characters into a subject; they are just two friends having an appalling day, and the last scene is about friendship rather than romance, which is the right call.
Where to watch Tangerine
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Scores
Ours
- Jibbi Score — 4.5 out of 5 rainbows. Trans leads playing trans characters, being funny rather than tragic.
Everyone else’s
- Rotten Tomatoes — 96%, via OMDb.
- IMDb — 7.1 out of 10 from 41,468 votes, via OMDb.
- Metacritic — 86 out of 100, via OMDb.
- TMDB — 6.9 out of 10 from 811 votes, refreshed daily.
The plot, officially
It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.
Synopsis and poster via TMDB.