Tangerine (2015) Review

Tangerine (2015)
Director: Sean Baker
Screenwriters: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
Starring: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian, Mickey O’Hagan, Alla Tumanian, James Ransone, Louisa Nersisyan

Almost a decade on, and despite the festive time of year it is set at, Tangerine hasn’t become an alternative Christmas classic. And yet, Sean Baker’s transgender sex worker dramedy seems more relevant and essential than ever in a world constantly riled up by culture war rhetoric and increasingly hostile towards anyone trying to become their true selves.

Trans sex worker Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) traipses across Hollywood on Christmas Eve to confront the woman her pimp boyfriend has been cheating on her with, while her friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) plies her trade and spreads the word about her planned lounge singing performance that evening.

The film opens on a seemingly Classical Hollywood opening titles sequence, cheerfully orchestrated with the credits in calligraphy font against a sunny yellow background. Then you notice the yellow is grubby and scratched, and it’s revealed to be a Formica tabletop in a Donut Time chain outlet. This is not going to be a classic Hollywood story.

“Merry Christmas Eve, bitch”. The only way to tell this particular, very specific story was to involve people who have lived this life, who are from this place, and who have experienced the discrimination and the transactions that take place on the streets in this downtrodden area of L.A.; individuals from a marginalised community seen as either a fetish or less-than by anyone who subscribes to binary ideas of gender identity and sexuality. 

Sean Baker reunited with Starlet co-screenwriter Chris Bergoch to tell a story of another element of the sex industry (the earlier film was about porn stars whereas this film follows sex workers on the street). Both men consulted with locals, with people who attended an LGBT centre, and actually lived this life in order to craft something honest and authentic. Extremely fortuitously, they met Mya Taylor, who in turn introduced them to her former roommate Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, and an all-timer of a movie double-act was formed.

For first-time performers on camera, Rodriguez and Taylor radiate confidence and personality like twin suns, their characters empathetic and a lot of raucous fun to spend time with, but also contradictory, messy and prone to solving problems with a combination of brute force of personality and explicit language.

The film is composed of two parallel storylines. Interspersed with Sin-Dee’s search are conversations in Armenian cab driver Razmik’s car, Sean Baker good luck charm actor Karren Karagulian (Anora) chatting amiably with passengers and passers-by played by a mix of professionals and amateurs on their varied journeys across Hollywood as his character struggles to make ends meet and looks for an outlet for his sexual frustrations. This is a real hallmark of Baker’s films; a mix of different experience levels in the performers all out to make the most convincing and natural tableau of life imaginable. The inclusion of this subplot also allows for exploration of another marginalised subculture in L.A., with a family of Armenian economic migrants and their struggles given ample screentime. 

One of the more interesting aspects of Tangerine from a filmmaking standpoint is that it was all shot on iPhone with various clever adaptors and finished with home editing software. Self-professed lovers of shooting on celluloid, Baker and his cinematographer Radium Cheung (‘Billions’) saw it as the only feasible method to capture the footage they needed on their budget level. And it looks great for it. The technology allowed for spontaneity, unobtrusiveness and mobility perfect for this kind of loose, semi-improvised storytelling shot among the general public. The entire production budget was around $100,000, which shows what small-scale indie productions can potentially achieve with the right know-how.

As one character points out, L.A.’s always sunny climate makes celebrating Christmas there feel a little strange. But Sean Baker really leans into the iconography of the season, juxtaposing festive decorations with grittier story content and bringing to the fore the themes of what this holiday should really be about; though lots of people find it a difficult time of year, if you’re able it should be about spending time with and supporting whatever loved ones you have.

Volatile family dinner scenes are fairly common in Christmas movies, but rather than an awkward argument in a domestic setting, Tangerine’s final festive “family” argument is in the same donut shop it began in. It is here that the two storylines converge, with Razmik’s formidable mother-in-law (Alla Tumanian) confronting him over his sexual proclivities and Sin-Dee discovering Alexandra had been keeping an almighty secret from her in the same scene.

About the only thing that doesn’t always work is the film’s (cost-saving) use of stock music and tracks found on Vine and Soundcloud. No ADR process was employed, so this could perhaps be to cover for sound recording from the day that was unusable, but the incessant trap beats can seem a bit much at times, detracting from the immediacy of the drama. This fairly minor quibble aside, the film is as lively and hard-hitting a comedy-drama as you’re likely to find.

Tangerine is a completely unique beast. Ambitious far beyond the resources the filmmakers had available, this is a socially conscious, innovative and individualistic film that shines the spotlight on under-represented communities working in professions that will brand you an outcast, an undesirable in mainstream capitalist society. The unconditional love of family (found or otherwise) and unbreakable friendship of course shines through, and the film does leave us on a bittersweet, cautiously positive note. The true sign of a film that really works is that it can move you even if you have never had similar experiences to the characters you are watching, and Tangerine manages to make the specificity of the lives being explored lend credence to telling a more universal story. 

Score: 22/24

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