REVIEW: BEAUTIFUL, PAM

BEAUTIFUL, PAM by director J.R. Stokes is proof-positive that you don't need a huge budget and tons of resources to tell a compelling, gritty, and engaging story.

The story follows Pam/Richard (Tom Ciorciari) a Trans sex worker dealing with a host of problems during the week leading up to their son's 18th birthday. Pam is an addict, HIV Positive, suicidal, and having an identity crisis, all on top living out of a hotel room and doing the dirty and dangerous job of being a streetwalker. Pam is also selfish, short-sighted, and filled with incredibly unrealistic expectations regarding their son, Paul.

Pam has a few heartbreaking run-ins with long suffering ex-wife Lauren (Bec Fordyce) who delivers the most damning assessment of Pam's character with "It's not the wig and the dress, it was the lying, cheating and drugs that you were doing before all of this."

Also factoring into the story is Beetle (Peter Konsevitch) Pam's long-time friend and partying buddy who may or may not have sexually abused son Paul in the past. Beetle is a life-long loser played to perfection.

The film is shot mainly in harsh, ugly, handheld close-ups that really hit you with the reality of these characters. It reminded me in some ways of TREE'S LOUNGE, that Steve Buscemi-directed film about some incredibly fucked up and damaged people that cannot get out of their own way to save their life.

The cast across the board was uniformly excellent, and this film was a total gut-punch in all of the best ways. These felt like real, damaged people, not caricatures or stereotypes, and that's quite a feat to pull off on a micro-budget. Even though it's a short run time (63 min) it really packs a lot of life in there, and this may be one of the most realistic films that I've seen in a long time that portrays selfish, self-destructive behavior with such a painful, tragic accuracy.