I Want What I Want Reviews

Films about transexuality are usually treated as high camp, which makes it hard to take the proceedings very seriously. I WANT WHAT I WANT manages to keep from falling into such a trap by remaining more concerned with the personal anguish the character is enduring than with sexual ambiguities. In fact, director Dexter tried to stay as clear from sex as possible while still maintaining a sense of the problems inherent in such a subject. Heywood plays the young man who finds satisfaction in dressing up in women's clothing and adopting other feminine characteristics. A confrontation occurs when his father, a bull-headed brute, catches Heywood in the act. The young man is terrified and hides out where he can feel comfortable in his new garb. Parading about full time as a girl, Heywood toys with the idea of having a sex-change operation, but he doesn't actually go through with the operation until a neighbor nearly rapes him after his advances are rejected. When the neighbor discovers the true sex of the "woman" he has been harassing, he beats Heywood, driving the confused and depressed lad to attempt castration with a bit of broken glass. An odd bit of casting has the lead role performed by a woman--ostensibly to capture the inner feminine qualities a man might find hard to portray. Heywood accomplishes this task quite well, the masculine characteristics mainly consisting of her lowering her voice a couple of notches. In any case, she is very convincing in a role that would be hard for an actor of either sex to undertake.