It's Christmas Eve in Los Angeles. Sin-Dee and her best friend Alexandra are celebrating a momentous occasion. Sin-Dee just got out of jail. She's all excited to pick up her life where it left off when Alexandra drops a bombshell: Sin-Dee's boyfriend Chester is cheating on her. Now we get to watch a woman scorned hunt down her boyfriend and his new lover for a not so happy reunion at the holidays. With Tangerine, writer/director Sean Baker and screenwriter Chris Bergoch craft one of the most darkly comic Christmas stories to come out since Dawn Davenport demanded cha-cha heels for Christmas in Female Trouble. There's a lot more social critique and satire going on in Tangerine than that plot description would initially lead you to believe.
Alexandra and Sin-Dee are transgender women. They are also prostitutes. Sin-Dee's boyfriend is also their pimp. The third wheel in the relationship is the pimp's new highest earner thanks to Sin-Dee's incarceration. She's also a biological woman, adding another level of stress and betrayal to Sin-Dee's plight.
While Sin-Dee and Angela trudge through downtown LA, an Armenian cab driver named Razmik avoids his family by working on Christmas Eve. He's willing to pick up any passenger, no matter how drunk, to feed his addiction.
Razmik is attracted to transgender prostitutes. Specifically, his fetish is performing oral sex on pre-op working girls. Sin-Dee is his favorite, Alexandra his back-up, and he's willing to drop everything in his life to hunt down Sin-Dee when he finds out she's out of jail.
Tangerine is a film about family, trust, and finding out who really cares about you on Christmas Eve. Sin-Dee, so full of rage at her boyfriend's infidelity, fails to see that Alexandra and the other girls on the streets are the ones really looking out for her. Razmik fails to see his wife as a true confidante in his life. Alexandra misses the mark in marketing her Christmas cabaret to every girl who has to work late hours on the holiday. Everyone is hunting for who they believe truly supports them while turning a blind eye to their willing and available allies.
Sean Baker takes an edgy drama about prostitutes and transforms it into a modern Neo-Realism slice of life comedy. It just so happens that our every day mundane-task-driven heroines are street walkers and their office and home is the back alleys and sidewalks of LA.
The camera constantly tracks Sin-Dee from behind. We have to play catchup to her wild and unpredictable decisions with no way to stop her. Alexandra is our key to Sin-Dee, and she's always half a step behind trying to avoid disaster. We're stuck on a runaway ride through Sin-Dee's isolation-fueled paranoia and the result is sheer genius.
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor do wonderful work bringing Sin-Dee and Alexandra to life. Rodriguez has a difficult story arc, starting at rage and ending at fury and desperation. She creates these beautiful, hilarious, and upsetting moments out of nothing as she hunts down everyone who can help her find Chester. Taylor provides a lot of the comic relief in responding to Sin-Dee's antics, but also pulls out these heart-wrenching moments in struggling between her own needs and keeping her best friend safe. It's a perfect balance of energy between Rodriguez and Taylor that carries the audience through some awkward and uncomfortable territory.
Tangerine is one of the most exciting indie films to come out in years. Baker gets a large ensemble cast to follow along on a dark journey through the lives of women all too often forgotten in society. Danger lurks in every corner and our heroes in the story perpetuate a cruel cycle of violence trying to protect their own lives.
Tangerine is a Christmas story of discovery and survival hidden in the shadows of a city best known for making magic happen. Women like Sin-Dee and Alexandra aren't allowed a pleasant happily ever after. They have to fight for everything they have and even that's not good enough to do more than just scrape by. The laughter and sass hide a universe a pain that oozes out of every frame of the film.
Tangerine is currently streaming on Netflix. Watch it. Buy it. Support great art.