In the vein of films like "Boys Don't Cry" and "Transamerica", "Big Momma's Like Father Like Son" dares to take on the taboo subject of transgenderism, a subject so often dodged by both mainstream and independent cinema. Yet this film dares to travel further into the taboo by displaying this theme with a backdrop of the relationship between an urban African- American father and son (a community that often shuns or ignores LGBT issues).
This dramatic comedy stars Martin Lawrence as Malcolm Turner, a frustrated man stuck behind his tough machismo identity, as both an FBI agent and African-American father. But the viewer quickly learns that the machismo displayed by Turner is guise to the true identity that liberates him, that of Hattie Mae Pierce, a confident large elderly black woman.
Unable to connect with his rapper son, brilliantly played by Brandon T. Jackson, the younger Turner is invited into his fathers secret world, when Hattie Mae Pierce takes a job at an all girls school, and insists he join him as a student under the guise of a female identity. But the line of Turner/Pierce's life between housemother and FBI agent becomes complicatedly blurred while trying to give her son a first hand understanding of her chosen lifestyle. Meanwhile the son grows increasingly tired of masking his true identity (thus finally understanding how his father feels) and ends up rejecting the transgender lifestyle for a cisgender one after falling in love with a female classmate.
As the film closes with Malcolm Turner finishing a final FBI case, father and son, née, mother and son, head back home, both equipped with a better understanding of who they and each other are and what their relationship truly means to one another. Bravo to director John Whitesell for making such an inspiring addition to LGBT cinema! 5/5 stars.
This dramatic comedy stars Martin Lawrence as Malcolm Turner, a frustrated man stuck behind his tough machismo identity, as both an FBI agent and African-American father. But the viewer quickly learns that the machismo displayed by Turner is guise to the true identity that liberates him, that of Hattie Mae Pierce, a confident large elderly black woman.
Unable to connect with his rapper son, brilliantly played by Brandon T. Jackson, the younger Turner is invited into his fathers secret world, when Hattie Mae Pierce takes a job at an all girls school, and insists he join him as a student under the guise of a female identity. But the line of Turner/Pierce's life between housemother and FBI agent becomes complicatedly blurred while trying to give her son a first hand understanding of her chosen lifestyle. Meanwhile the son grows increasingly tired of masking his true identity (thus finally understanding how his father feels) and ends up rejecting the transgender lifestyle for a cisgender one after falling in love with a female classmate.
As the film closes with Malcolm Turner finishing a final FBI case, father and son, née, mother and son, head back home, both equipped with a better understanding of who they and each other are and what their relationship truly means to one another. Bravo to director John Whitesell for making such an inspiring addition to LGBT cinema! 5/5 stars.