AFI FEST Los Angeles International Film Festival 2009

Plus-sized Tonia (Fernando Santos), born Antonio, has lived as a woman for decades. She’s a battle-scarred veteran of the Lisbon drag clubs, with a cute if somewhat crazy lover young enough to be her son (she also has an actual son, an army deserter working through his own sexual issues). But as the title flatly suggests, she ultimately finds it impossible to escape her biological destiny. This is a poignant rumination on the mysteries of identity but hardly an affirmative celebration of our fluid and malleable selves. João Pedro Rodrigues (O FANTASMA, TWO DRIFTERS) rejects the clichéd ostentation of musicals and drag shows—as indicated by the constrained 1:33 frame —and his vaguely ascetic approach has the perverse effect of making his material all the more magical.

–Dennis Lim, Cinema Scope