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XXY Reviews

XXY fills a void in cinematic subject matter, and does so with poignancy that leaves viewers thinking long after the credits roll.

Full Review | May 7, 2023

It’s difficult to buy a message of empowerment when it’s at the expense of someone else’s dignity.

Full Review | Apr 21, 2023

A raw, honest film, sexually frank and deeply insightful, and we are left with the feeling that love and life will defy all bounds, breaking barriers between genders and societal norms.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2022

It makes a somewhat interesting discourse on sexuality and self-acceptance, but the superfluous way it is delivered turns its coming-of-age drama into an anemic, redundant thing that ultimately just makes me yawn. Full review in Spanish

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 25, 2022

Lucía Puenzo explores all of this sensitively and beautifully. She portrays these teenagers joyfully. The camera doesn't shy away from heartbreaking and difficult scenes, either.

Full Review | Feb 25, 2021

If it isn't exactly a happy ending, it's at least an acknowledgment that her character will develop long after the credits roll. Sometimes that's the best we can hope for.

Full Review | Jan 11, 2021

complemented by a subdued and heartfelt performance by Ricardo Darín. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 15, 2020

Fluid camera work filled with shots of window frames, mirrors, and reflections emphasizes the story's doubling, narrowness of view, and constant thinking about fixed ideas and viewpoints.

Full Review | Mar 9, 2020

Inés Efron is magnificent as the lead in this traumatic tale that perfectly captures the difficulty of making tough life choices in teenage years.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 3, 2018

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Even when the film overdoses on its own downcastness or on dubious similes and symbolisms, you can feel why the characters as well as the filmmakers are humbled in more than one way by the conceptual intricacies and the high emotional stakes of the essent

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 10, 2010

Puenzo goes beyond medical melodrama with a talented ensemble of Argentine actors who make this weird tale breathe.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 23, 2009

Moody and thoughtful.

Full Review | Dec 17, 2008

treats gender issues with a hand so delicate you feel sad for everyone involved

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 15, 2008

Unexpected and wonderfully thoughtful.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2008

The movie's images are frequently startling, its performances sharply observed and quirky, and its take on its subject matter undeniably provocative.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

Trim and briskly paced, XXY is sometimes difficult to watch, but Puenzo lets the actors explore a full range of emotions.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

A contrived screenplay dilutes the unique story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 18, 2008

The struggles of those around Alex are equally moving.

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Movie Review | 'XXY'

Confronting the Perils of Puberty Squared

By Stephen Holden

May 2, 2008

How must the world appear to someone who has been treated as an exotic clinical specimen from birth? The moody, surreal “XXY” explores the world of Alex (Inés Efron), an intersex teenager born with both male and female sex organs navigating the treacherous emotional and hormonal rapids of uncertain gender.

The movie, directed by the Argentine filmmaker Lucía Puenzo and based on Sergio Bizzio’s short story “Cinismo,” is not a clinical case study, though months of research went into its creation. It is a somber, brooding study of Alex and her parents as they face the painful crossroads when adulthood looms. To help their child feel as normal as possible, Alex’s parents have fled Argentina to a remote seaside enclave in Uruguay, where her protective father, Kraken (Ricardo Darín), works as a marine biologist.

But even here, curious teenagers from the fishing village recognize that Alex is different and react with predictable cruelty. There is a near-rape scene in which several boys drag her into the dunes and pull off her pants to inspect her anatomy.

This overly schematic movie pointedly compares Alex to the marine life under Kraken’s scrutiny: sea turtles, a giant squid and especially clownfish, which exhibit behavior known as sequential hermaphroditism, when the male changes sex and becomes female.

Alex, with the aid of hormonal therapy, has been living as a girl. But with the onset of adolescence, her sexuality has begun to bloom, and for reasons she never explains and perhaps couldn’t put into words, she has recently stopped taking the drugs. Her deepest impulse is to be simply who s/he is.

Although she has developed breasts and has a girl’s voice, we eventually discover that she has a penis (unseen in the movie). Her masculinization may not yet be visible in facial hair and other signs, but her male aggression has already landed her in trouble. As the story begins, she has overreacted to the curiosity of a close male friend about her sexuality and has broken his nose.

Under increasing pressure from her parents to make a final decision about whether to live as a boy or a girl, she is furiously reluctant to choose. And Ms. Efron’s thrashing performance conveys Alex’s complicated mixture of ambivalence and defiance.

Visiting from Buenos Aires are a plastic surgeon, Ramiro (Germán Palacios); his wife, Erika (Carolina Peleritti); and their skinny, buck-toothed 16-year-old son, Alvaro (Martín Piroyansky). The rapidly intensifying relationship between Alex and Alvaro, who is sexually curious but not fully aware of his own gay tendencies, is the movie’s dramatic crux. Will they make love? If so, how? How will they feel afterward?

Their nervous flirtation culminates in a remarkable sex scene that is as confusing to the audience as it is to the characters, who enjoy it despite their anxiety afterward. That scene, and everything leading up to it, evoke a hyperaware sexual limbo in which you scrutinize the masculine and feminine components in the movie’s other characters and recognize the degree to which everyone has both.

If “XXY” is imagistically too programmatic (a scene of carrots being sliced is typical of its Freudian heavy-handedness) and devoid of humor, it never seems pruriently exploitative. It sustains an unsettling mood of ambiguity that lingers long after the final credits.

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Lucía Puenzo; written (in Spanish, with English subtitles) by Ms. Puenzo, based on a short story by Sergio Bizzio; director of photography, Natasha Braier; edited by Alex Zito and Hugo Primero; music by Andrés Goldstein and Daniel Tarrab; produced by Luis Puenzo and Jose María Morales; released by Film Movement. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Ricardo Darín (Kraken), Valeria Bertuccelli (Suli), Germán Palacios (Ramiro), Carolina Peleritti (Erika), Martín Piroyansky (Alvaro) and Inés Efron (Alex).

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NEW YORK -- "XXY," an Argentinean film by debuting director Lucia Puenzo, rises to the challenge of its difficult sexual subject matter. The story of a young hermaphrodite who's not sure if she's emotionally a boy or a girl manages to be both raw-edged and moving.

By Richard James Havis , The Associated Press April 8, 2008 9:00pm

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New Directors, New Films Festival NEW YORK — “XXY,” an Argentinean film by debuting director Lucia Puenzo, rises to the challenge of its difficult sexual subject matter. The story of a young hermaphrodite who’s not sure if she’s emotionally a boy or a girl manages to be both raw-edged and moving. The centerpiece of “XXY” is a feral performance by Ines Efron as the confused youth. But supporting characters are all thoroughly nuanced, and this injects a powerful humanism. The result is a tough, engaging, extremely touching work of cinema.

“XXY” has already performed well at festivals , picking up the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at Cannes and a well-deserved New Directors Award at Edinburgh. Critical praise should boost chances in upscale art-house cinemas. Film Movement is handling the stateside release May 2.

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Film Movement

Summary For just about everybody, adolescence means having to confront a number of choices and life decisions, but rarely any as monumental as the one facing 15-year-old Alex, who was born an intersex child. As Alex begins to explore her sexuality, her mother invites friends from Buenos Aires to come for a visit at their house on the gorgeous Ur ... Read More

Directed By : Lucía Puenzo

Written By : Sergio Bizzio, Lucía Puenzo

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Valeria Bertuccelli

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Luciano nóbile, lucas escariz, critic reviews.

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5 out of 5 stars
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Time Out says

An armful of awards from Cannes, Edinburgh and elsewhere have flagged up

Lucía Puenzo

’s debut feature as something special. And it is. The subject matter’s unusual, tracing the dilemma faced by parents of a teenage hermaphrodite as resurgent masculine hormones threaten to change Daddy’s ‘girl’ for ever. More remarkable though, is the confidence and maturity of its approach, since what might have been preachy or even sensationalist proceeds through generous empathy for its various parties, played out amid evocative surroundings on the rugged coast of southern Uruguay. In an extraordinary central performance, actress

Inés Efron

turns her character’s specific personal issue into a volatile expression of universal adolescent anxieties, her mannish frame a walking index of androgynous uncertainty, her feelings churning over both an alienated present (the family moved from Buenos Aires to keep her from harm) and a future that promises transformation into…whom exactly? That great Argentinian actor

Ricardo Darín

anchors the proceedings brilliantly as the marine biologist father who thinks his daughter is perfect as she is, but knows surgery and medication would be required to sustain her femininity – hence the presence in this remote enclave of a visiting surgeon and his disaffected teenage son (

Martín Piroyansky

, another fearless contribution). Their curdled filial relationship in turn offers another angle on parents too ready to define their children through their sexuality, and further encourages understanding for those outside conventional definitions. Like Claire Denis’ best work, the film is alive to the precise emotional tenor of every moment as it unfolds, which it does unpredictably, provocatively and with affecting reserves of compassion.

Release Details

Release date: Friday 9 May 2008
Duration: 90 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Lucía Puenzo
Screenwriter: Lucía Puenzo
Ricardo Darín
Martín Piroyansky
Germán Palacios
Valeria Bertuccelli
Carolina Peleritti
Martín Piroyanski

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> XXY (2007) Film Review

Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson

The potential for this film to go very wrong was great. After all, hermaphroditism – more commonly referred to as intersexuality these days – is a subject that could easily end up being played for its ‘freak’ value. That XXY explores the issue carefully from the emotional viewpoint, without being exploitative makes it all the more remarkable when you consider that this is Lucía Puenzo’s directorial debut.

Alex (Inés Efron, reminiscent of a very young Sigourney Weaver) is a typical moody teenager, mooching about with her pals in Uruguay. Although not immediately addressed, it soon becomes apparent that she has an additional emotional problem to contend with – she (or quite possibly, he) is intersex.

The family have moved to Uruguay to protect their daughter but, as she begins to develop sexually, they find they can no longer sweep the issue under the carpet. Alex’s mother Suli (Valeria Bertuchelli) invites some family friends to stay, with an ulterior motive, since Ramiro (German Palacios) is a plastic surgeon, who she hopes may ‘normalise’ their daughter. Dad Kraken (Ricardo Darin) is blissfully unaware of this initially and, though grappling with his daughter’s ‘problem’ himself, is angered by the thought of anyone cutting her up. “There’s too many endangered species already,” he says with an air of finality.

When Alex strikes up a relationship with Ramiro’s son Alvaro (Martín Piroyansky) - also grappling with his own issues of sexuality - it sets their parents on course for conflict and Alex on a road littered with tough choices.

Struggle and angst lie at the centre of the movie but also the strong emotional bond between parent and child. In addition, there is a debate about choice and nature and, of course, the nature of choice. Darin - excellent in last year’s El Aura - again proves that he can break your heart with a look, conveying unspoken emotion with a glance that taps you into his pain. Efron also proves she is one to watch as she gives Alex’s emotional turmoil a subtlety, managing to capture both the precociousness of a teen on the verge of a sexual awakening and the awkwardness and insecurity of the child not quite left behind.

Puenzo proves an able director, her muted blue colour palette is well-chosen to mirror the emotions and her frequent long shots of the waves and beach create a compelling atmosphere. Although some of the imagery used is perhaps a tad OTT – the idea of Dad being called Kraken, for example, recalling the monster of the deep – for the most part the script is kept refreshingly simple. This perfectly suits a film in which characters are grappling with issues they can’t even explain properly to themselves, let alone explain to others and the simple and Puenzo's direct camera style means that moments of shared silence linger on in the memory.

Director: Lucía Puenzo

Writer: Lucía Puenzo

Starring: Inés Efron, Ricardo Darín, Valeria Bertuccelli, Martín Piroyansky, Germán Palacios, Lucas Escariz, Luciano Nóbile, Carolina Pelleritti

Runtime: 86 minutes

Country: Argentina, France, Spain

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REVIEW | Changes: Lucia Puenzo’s “XXY”

Michael koresky.

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Though it’s as sullen and damp-grey as its morose 15-year-old protagonist, Argentinean filmmaker Lucia Puenzo ‘s directorial debut “ XXY ” doesn’t really get inside the mind of young Alex as much as watch her with an awkward combination of fascination and empathy. It’s both a success and a failing on the new filmmaker’s part; her intention in making “XXY,” to humanely depict a character who might in other films or literature be relegated to oddball supporting status, is undoubtedly noble. Yet by focusing almost exclusively on Alex’s differences (she was born with both female and male genitalia), rather than offering other facets of her life for consideration, the film slightly shortchanges what could have been a beautifully full portrait of a teenager going through radical inner and outer turmoil.

Too often Alex feels more like a literary conceit than a person, a succinct embodiment of the confusion of adolescence, the terror of burgeoning sexuality adroitly made external. Puenzo doesn’t do Alex (played by Ines Efron ) any favors by pointedly placing her family and friends in heavily symbolic roles, all of which underscore rather than dilute her abnormality: her father, Kraken ( Ricardo Darin ), is a marine biologist given to puzzling over the sex of washed-up turtles; her mother’s friend ( German Palacios ), whom she invites for a weekend at their home at the Uruguayan sea shore, is a plastic surgeon; the surgeon’s son, Alvaro ( Martin Piroyansky ), is also going through frightening stages of sexual maturation and bafflement. Rather than tread lightly around all of this delicate material, Puenzo directs with a frank humorlessness that borders on ponderous.

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Rarely is there a conversation in the film’s ninety minutes that doesn’t pertain to Alex’s condition: her and her parents’ indecision about whether to excise her male organs, now that she has stopped taking hormone medication (though she identifies as female, would that be cosmetic or simply castration, they wonder?), does form the narrative backbone, but with so many moments devoted to family members simply staring off into ominous, windswept spaces (in one scene, her mother, nicely played by Valeria Bertuccelli , suddenly reminisces about Alex’s birth at a cloudy, rocky beach), one would think they had just begun thinking about these difficult choices at the film’s outset.

Similarly, when Kraken sorrowfully tries to connect with a local gas station attendant who had a sex-change operation many years ago, he stumbles over his words “I have a daughter . . . a son…”; the thought that an ostensibly loving father hasn’t in more than a decade been able to properly identify his own child as either male or female speaks to a certain lack of real-world grounding here.

But it’s Alex and Alvaro’s desperate stabs at sexual contact and emotional understanding that form the core of “XXY,” and Puenzo does depict their inelegant fumbling with penetrating, if still dour, capability. Piroyansky effortlessly enacts the slack-jawed, tortured inwardness of the dizzied teenaged male who doesn’t know what to do with his sudden bursts of sexual aggression, and Efron, with her hollowed-out eyes, attenuated bone structure, and intimidating stare (if there’s anything confident about her it’s her anger) is a compelling figure: shot in gritty, caressing close-ups by Puenzo, she looks at least thirty years old, wise beyond her years yet hobbled by disgust at her own body. Alex dares others to look at her, embracing her oddness as an emotional strength, and Efron cunningly depicts that mix of fragility and self-possession.

If only the entire film were as daring and untidy as Alex. Puenzo’s debut is too overdetermined and saddled with explicit metaphor; it’s the kind of film that deigns to have a pet lizard crawling over Alex’s feet (most lizards are sexually dimorphic…get it?) while she reads to herself (aloud!) from a biology book about the evolutionary and embryonic dominance of the female sex. If Puenzo had found anything compelling about her characters outside of their most sensationalistic traits, then “XXY” might have been a more forceful unorthodox coming-of-age story; instead she abandons them at a particularly gloomy shore.

[Michael Koresky is co-founder and editor of Reverse Shot and the managing editor and staff writer of the Criterion Collection.]

Most Popular

Review: Gender As Destiny in "XXY"

Published: May. 30, 2008, 10:54 a.m.

Shawn Levy, The Oregonian

A delicate issue receives delicate but forthright treatment in the Argentinean drama "XXY." Thirty-four year-old director Lucia Puenzo's debut feature centers on Alex, a 15-year-old hermaphrodite living as a girl with her parents in a coastal Uruguayan town. The family moved from Buenos Aires, we're told more than once, to escape the awkward questions and judgments of others, but those questions and judgments turn out to be unavoidable when old acquaintances come to visit, their own troubled teenage son in tow.

The film, which could easily have suffered from either an exploitative lack of empathy for its characters or an earnest excess of it, ends up as a plea for tolerance while acknowledging there are no easy answers for the conundrums at hand. The lead performance of Ines Efron is impressive; she imbues the rebellious but mature Alex with all the confusion and awe of any puberty-laden adolescent, but magnified exponentially. Alex has been taking hormones to maintain a feminine aspect, but now she feels the need to decide for herself what gender identity to adopt.

Meanwhile, the societal pressure for a surgical solution is represented by Ramiro (German Palacios), who's arrived with his wife, Erika (Carolina Pelleritti), and shy, awkward son, Alvaro (Martin Piroyansky).

Alex's father, Kraken (Ricardo Darin), is a marine biologist who rescues stranded sea turtles, while Ramiro is a cosmetic surgeon; the contrast couldn't be starker, especially when Darin turns on the soulful, bearded intensity he previously brought to movies such as "Nine Queens" and "The Aura."

Alvaro has his own sexual identity issues, but his parents are clearly less open to deviations from the norm. Still, they're not outright villains, and decisions regarding Alex's future are anguished for everyone involved.

For all its directness (including a fairly unconventional teen sex scene), "XXY" is tactful in many ways: The word "hermaphrodite" is never actually uttered, for instance, and the whole topic is revealed obliquely, mostly through the puzzled eyes of Alvaro. Most impressively, a tale that could have been handled with condescending simplicity becomes a testament to the flawed but noble humanity of both parents and children.

(86 minutes, not rated, Living Room Theatres) Grade: B+

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Film Details

Articles & Reviews

Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, lucia puenzo, ricardo darin, martin piroyanski, german palacios, valeria bertucelli, technical specs.

For just about everybody, adolescence means having to confront a number of choices and life decisions, but rarely any as monumental as the one facing 15 year-old Alex who was born an intersex child. As Alex begins to explore her sexuality, her mother invites friends from Buenos Aires to come for a visit at their house on the gorgeous Uruguayan shore, along with their 16-year-old son Álvaro. Alex is immediately attracted to the young man, which adds yet another level of complexity to her personal search for identity, and forces both families to face their worst fears.

Carolina Pelereti

Luciano nobile, guillermo angelelli, cesar troncoso, jean pierre reguerraz, ailin salas, lucas escariz, martin piroyansky, norma angeleri, sergio bizzio, natasha braier, pablo carnaghi, andres goldstein, gustavo guido, gonzalo gutierrez, jose-maria morales, manuel morales, miguel morales, ezequiel mosquera, leonardo petralia, hugo primero, luis puenzo, nicolas puenzo, bruno roberti, roberto samuelle, fernando sirianni, fernando soldevila, daniel tarrab, fabienne vonier, beatushka wojtowicz, alejandro zito.

Miscellaneous Notes

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2008 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Winner of the Outstanding International Dramatic Feature Grand Jury Award at the 2008 Outfest: Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Winner of the Skillset New Directors Award at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Released in United States Spring May 2, 2008

Released in United States August 15, 2008

Released in United States on Video December 2, 2008

Released in United States August 2007

Released in United States 2008

Released in United States June 2008

Released in United States July 2008

Shown at Edinburgh International Film Festival (Rosebud) August 15-26, 2007.

Shown at New Directors/New Films Series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center March 26-April 6, 2008.

Shown at Santa Barbara International Film Festival (Latino Cinemedia) January 24-February 3, 2008.

Shown at Seattle International Film Festival (Contemporary World Cinema) May 22-June 15, 2008.

Shown at San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (Centerpiece) June 19-29, 2008.

Shown at Outfest: Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (International Dramatic Feature) July 9-21, 2008.

Based on the short story "Cinismo" written by Sergio Bizzio.

Feature directorial debut for Lucia Puenzo.

Released in United States Spring May 2, 2008 (NY)

Released in United States August 15, 2008 (Los Angeles)

Released in United States August 2007 (Shown at Edinburgh International Film Festival (Rosebud) August 15-26, 2007.)

Released in United States 2008 (Shown at New Directors/New Films Series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center March 26-April 6, 2008.)

Released in United States 2008 (Shown at Santa Barbara International Film Festival (Latino Cinemedia) January 24-February 3, 2008.)

Released in United States 2008 (Shown at Seattle International Film Festival (Contemporary World Cinema) May 22-June 15, 2008.)

Released in United States June 2008 (Shown at San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (Centerpiece) June 19-29, 2008.)

Released in United States July 2008 (Shown at Outfest: Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (International Dramatic Feature) July 9-21, 2008.)

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As the film opens in the autumn of 1993, Coles ( Mark Ruffalo ) is studying film at Sarah Lawrence College. One night at a party he meets Sam ( Maya Stange ), and asks her, "Would you think I was being too forward if I said, 'Let's go back to your room?' " Her reply: "What would you say if I said, 'Let's go back to my room, but let's bring Thea?'" This was not what he had in mind, but openness to experimentation is obligatory for all Sarah Lawrence students, and besides, Thea ( Kathleen Robertson ) is intriguing in her outsider rebel way.

What follows is a kinduva sortuva menage a trois; the possibility hovers that the real reason for including Thea is that she is Sam's roommate and so it seemed like good manners. The next day, as Sam and Coles discuss it on the phone, they both try to backtrack and Coles concludes, "So we're all sorry -- but we all had fun." This is, if only Sam could intuit it, an analysis that Coles will be making frequently in the years to come.

Sam likes him. Coles likes her, but he cheats on her anyway, "meaninglessly," with a one-night stand. When he confesses, something breaks between them. When a man tells a woman he loves that he has cheated but "it didn't mean anything," this translates to the woman as, "It is meaningless to me that I cheated on you." Coles doesn't quite grasp this.

As undergraduates the three form the kinds of bonds that do not find closure with graduation. Ten years pass. Coles is now working in the advertising business in Manhattan and has been living for five years with Claire ( Petra Wright ). He runs into Sam one day, and finds that she has returned to America after breaking off an engagement in London. She tells him that Thea, who was once so wild, is the first of the three to be married; she runs a restaurant with Miles ( David Thornton ).

Coles of course is attracted to Sam, who looks all the more desirable because she is now the woman he would be cheating with, instead of cheating on. She's on the rebound, and they share a heedless passionate heat.

The victim now is Claire, who of all the characters is the wisest about human nature. She is trim, elegant, a little older than Coles and knows exactly who he is and what he is. When she walks in on Coles and Sam, she walks out again, and conceals what she has seen because she is prepared to accept Coles, up to a point.

All of these lines of sexual intrigue come to a head in a weekend at the Hampton house of Thea and Miles. To describe what happens would be wrong, but let's suggest it would be a comedy if written by Noel Coward but is not a comedy here. Much depends upon poor Coles, who is addicted to infatuation and finds fidelity a painful deprivation in a world filled, he thinks, with perfect love that is almost within his grasp.

Ruffalo plays the character with that elusive charm he also revealed in " You Can Count on Me ." In that film he was the unreliable brother of Laura Linney , who loved him but despaired of his irresponsibility. He has a way of smiling at a joke only he can understand. He isn't really a villain (there are no bad people in the movie), but more of a victim of his own inability to commit; he ends up unhappier than any of the people he disappoints.

Stange and Robertson find the right notes for their undergraduates who seem to trade places as adults--the reliable one becoming rootless while the daring one settles down. But it is Wright who does the best and most difficult job among the women, finding a painful balance between Claire's self-respect and her desire to hang on to Coles. She is hurt not so much by his sexual infidelity as by his failure to value her seriously enough. "I feel a little like a consolation prize," she says at one point.

One review of this film complains that all of the characters are jerks, and asks why we should care about them. Well, jerks are often the most interesting characters in the movies, and sometimes the ones most like ourselves. "XX/XY" would be dismal if the characters all behaved admirably. But the writer and director, Austin Chick , knows too much about human nature to permit that. The film has a rare insight into the mechanism by which some men would rather pursue happiness than obtain it.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

XX/XY (2003)

Rated R For Sexuality, Language and Brief Drug Use

Kathleen Robertson as Thea

Petra Wright as Claire

Kel O'Neill as Sid

Joshua Spafford as Jonathan

Zach Shaffer as Nick

Maya Stange as Sam

Mark Ruffalo as Coles Burroughs

Joey Kern as Tommy

Written and Directed by

Austin Chick

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XXY Movie Review

XXY is a 2007 Argentine drama film directed by Lucia Puenzo and starring Ines Efron . It has its problems, but it’s mostly a very good, important movie about this subject matter.

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“ What do you regret the most?

Not seeing me again, or not having seen it? “

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It follows an intersex girl who was born with two sets of genitalia. She struggles with friends and in school, and her family invites a doctor with his family to the house to talk about her possible operation. She becomes involved with the doctor’s son sexually and everything goes downhill from there. It’s a strong plot that was well crafted and most of the beats I really appreciated.

The film is wonderfully ambiguous in its ending and somewhat sad, yet hopeful as it shows us that it ultimately doesn’t matter what happens with Alex and what gender she eventually ends up in. Society is obsessed with gender and putting people in the boxes way too much and I really liked the film’s wonderfully open-minded attitude in that regard.

However, not everything here is roses as is evidenced by a couple of very unpleasant sequences. The rape scene was not good at all and it was too graphic whereas the sex scene, though important, still felt overly graphic for me and overly aggressive. The movie doesn’t show full nudity, but still it was a bit tacky to portray teenagers in such a sexual manner. But, I still really appreciated in a way that scene which was so ambiguous whether it was rape or consensual and how different and unique of a situation it posed.

The film is obsessed with sex and genitalia a bit too much and it seemed to me that it was made by a male director. Lucia Puenzo’s focus certainly is troublesome at times, though her direction is overall competent. I am just saying that a less sensational approach would have made the movie more timeless for sure.

Alex is a problematic character for me as well. Realistic, sure. But she is simply too unlikable at times and for a rare intersex protagonist in a movie, that bothered me. Her overly dominant and rapey behavior was also not good. I still appreciated her development, though I failed to empathize with her personally.

The movie very skillfully showcases two very different parents. Her mother wants a “real” daughter and wants to force her into operations whereas her father is very open-minded, supportive and overall a wonderful father figure for her. That’s also wonderfully explored with Alvaro whose father is so homophobic, cold and unapproachable. I liked that the movie was also about Alvaro and not just Alex and I really liked his ambiguous sexuality and sexual examination. That was all done in such a sophisticated manner.

XXY is very well directed by Lucia Puenzo , though I failed to notice all that silent movie influences from her. The movie is silent at times, but it mostly featured quite a bit of dialogue which was strong and with a couple of wonderful, eye-opening conversations. The acting is definitely terrific across the board with Ines Efron delivering a stupendous performance in such a difficult role emotionally. She also fitted it like a glove with her interesting androgynous look. The pacing is terrific too as the movie is engaging throughout whereas the photography is also very nice.

XXY is unfortunately overly sensationalist in a couple of graphic, unsubtle sequences, but overall it’s an important movie about the rarely portrayed subject of intersex people which features a powerful, wonderful ending, terrific dialogue and a very strong performance from Ines Efron who was also so well cast with her interesting androgynous look. It features a highly important message about excessive obsession about gender in our society and the extreme importance of strong, appropriate parenting.

My Rating – 4

Four Daughters (2023)

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We checked for updates on 251 streaming services on April 5, 2024 at 8:52:35 AM. Something wrong? Let us know!

XXY streaming: where to watch online?

Currently you are able to watch "XXY" streaming on Hoopla or for free with ads on Tubi TV, VIX , Freevee, Xumo Play. It is also possible to rent "XXY" on Amazon Video online and to download it on Amazon Video.

Where does XXY rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Streaming charts last updated: 9:12:20 AM, 04/05/2024

XXY is 6369 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 3146 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than View from the Top but less popular than Mickey's Christmas Carol.

Alex, an intersexed 15-year-old, is living as a girl, but she and her family begin to wonder whether she's emotionally a boy when another teenager's sexual advances bring the issue to a head. As Alex faces a final decision regarding her gender, she meets both hostility and compassion.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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