1h 28m / R / Drama, Comedy
A REWIND series feature presention. Everybody has at least one REWIND movie in them. The movie you always watch when it’s on TV. The movie you finish, rewind, and start right over. It isn’t a movie you know you “should” like. It isn’t a movie that is “important.” You know your REWIND movie is good, even if nobody else does.
SYNOPSIS: It’s Christmas Eve in Hollywood, and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) just got out of jail. Spending 28 days inside isn’t easy for anybody, but Sin-Dee is a trans woman, a sex worker, and a jilted lover — her boyfriend and pimp Chester (James Ransone) cheated on her with a cis woman while she was locked up — and she’s got a lot of anger to work out. She and her best friend Alexandria (Mya Taylor) immediately tear out across Hollywood looking for the miserable Chester, the woman he cheated with, and any little morsel of peace they can find.
In 2015, a lot about Tangerine felt new and exciting. The two main characters are trans actors playing trans characters, which felt revolutionary. The entire film was shot by writer-director-cinematographer Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket, Anora) on iPhone 5S cameras, which was unheard of. But for better or worse, probably worse, it feels just as groundbreaking in 2024. And in summoning up the hard-scrabble vitality and underdog precarity of holiday classics like Tokyo Godfathers and Trading Places, Tangerine deserves to be recognized in the new Christmas canon.