Caitlyn Jenner and her glamorous Vanity Fair cover brought unprecedented visibility to transgender women. Laverne Cox, the first transgender actress to win an Emmy Award, fronted Time magazine, an image of grace and growing acceptance.
The transgender women at the heart of “Tangerine” come from the opposite end of the spectrum — the invisible and maligned. They’re sex workers who troll the streets of Hollywood, turning tricks in parked cars. Their hangout is an all-night doughnut shop. They keep company with pimps, druggies and the overlooked.
Shot entirely with iPhones, writer-director Sean Baker’s fifth feature is an urgent, intimate look at a day in the lives of two transgender prostitutes. It illuminates Los Angeles’ fringe-living, often unseen characters: the hookers and dope fiends, the late-night cab drivers. They’re so colorfully realized, in fact, that you may not really want to spend a whole day with them. “Tangerine” shows their lives ruled by desperation with few bright spots.
It’s Christmas Eve morning, and fast-talking, frenetic Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is fresh out of a monthlong stint in jail. She and best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) are so broke, they’re splitting a doughnut. As they catch up, Alexandra tells Sin-Dee her pimp/drug-dealer boyfriend was unfaithful while she was away. Sin-Dee becomes instantly determined to find the woman who did her wrong.