You know, although I love the Lady Chablis a very great deal (when I'm not busy hating her for wearing tailored skirt suits so much better than I do), you know something is dreadfully wrong with a movie when it has Kevin Spacey and Jude Law in the cast, and Chablis is the one whose performance everybody remembers.<br /><br />It is impossible to pour enough vitriol on the "acting" of John Cusack in the ostensible lead, although others have given it a brave try. His character is alleged to be from New York, but talks nothing like a New Yorker, and worse, is bemused by everything. (This does make it convenient for Cusack, who thus has to wear only one facial expression for most of the movie.) He is first bemused by a man walking an invisible dog -- when in the streets of his character's alleged hometown, people hold conversations with entire invisible people daily -- by the guy in the diner (pretty "fly" for a white guy), and then by the concept that a zillionaire, especially in the South, would keep loaded weapons in the house. Then, he completely misses the Lady's reference to her hormone shots, and thus gets to be bemused by her revelation, with which his line, "She's a he?", bludgeons us over the head. I have been to New York, and I can tell you that no true New Yorker would be even MILDLY startled that somebody born into a male-sexed body can make an attractive and convincing female. (Technical note: Chablis isn't pre-op, she's non-op. The book makes it quite clear that although her sex and gender don't match, she has no desire to undergo expensive, risky, and painful sex reassignment surgery.) When Cusack discovers his book in Spacey's library, you're not so much surprised that Spacey owns the book as you are surprised that Cusack's halfwit character could write an entire book all by himself.<br /><br />So, let's see. What stereotypes and clichés do we have, in just the first hour?<br /><br />1. Southerners, when not merely eccentric, are outright freakish. (However, unlike Boo Radley or Karl Childers from "Sling Blade," the guy who commits the murder can at least keep up a veneer of non-freakdom.)<br /><br />2. Fat black women, when not feeding hordes of white people, are practicing voodoo. <br /><br />3. All trans gendered women are entertainers, and have potty mouths. (Sorry, Chablis. This one is at least in part your fault.) <br /><br />4. Anybody from north of the Mason-Dixon Line is going to be completely stunned to discover that Southerners can be eccentric and freakish; apparently they've never had to sit through any movies like this one.<br /><br />I can't go on. You shouldn't, either. You should read the book, which actually treats all of its characters as fully human, and doesn't labor under the necessity of casting the director's daughter. I will admit, however, that had I not done so, I wouldn't have come on here and read the unintentionally hilarious review by the gentleman who complains that the cast and crew are full of liberals (in a Hollywood movie? Shocking!) who seek to "normalize" homosexuality (call me crazy, but I don't think Spacey's character is ever intended to be seen as the most normal guy on the planet), and then rants on in the next paragraph about how the movie lacks "climax," and therefore he's "frustrated" and "unfulfilled." Any Freudian implications in this are left as an exercise for the reader.