Satan Reviews- Films: Tangerine

Tangerine (2015)

Crime film/Drama film

1h 28m

Spoilers

I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting when I pressed play on this film, but I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Tangerine takes place on Christmas Eve in LA- which explains why no one was wearing coats in the middle of winter- after Sin-Dee is released from a 28 day sentencing in prison. Although, to be honest, I can't remember why Sin-Dee was in prison and I watched this film yesterday.

The film opens on Alexandra and Sin-Dee sharing a donut in Donut time when Alexandra accidentally reveals that Sin-Dee's boyfriend, Chester, has cheater on her with a "fish*". This causes mass drama for the rest of the film.

This film as actually pretty funny in parts. The parts set in the back of the taxi were pretty amusing. I mean, I was giggling as quietly as humanly possible because I was pretending to be asleep at the scene where the woman with the pet carrier was in the taxi. They were just having a conversation about her dead when she just sadly said, "it's empty," and then it cut to another scene. I shouldn't find that funny but I was sleep deprived.

I love the casting for this film for a few reasons.

1. The cast diversity is representative of the setting. As in, it's unlikely all of the main cast would be white in this situation, but let's be honest, if a big company had made this film the casting probably wouldn't be qwhite right.
2. Transwomen were hired to play transwomen characters. And I shouldn't technically be applauding them for that because that's essentially doing the bare minimum. But a lot of people don't seem to understand that....  
3. The cast worked well together and had good chemistry.

This film lowkey felt like a documentary at times which worked for the film pretty well. It made the film feel more realistic and less staged than most films. I think that the dialog and the fact that the film was filmed on an iPhone helped.

Now, I'm not saying that the film's script was the best but it actually sounded how you'd expect those characters to speak; which creates good characterisation.

The soundtrack to this film is amazing. It added to the experience of watching the film and it got me lowkey kinda hyped.

 Would I watch this film again? Most likely. It's an enjoyable film that's surprisingly heartfelt at moments- just enough to make me feel some emotion but not enough to completely gross me out.

Would I recommend this film? Definitely. I feel like this is a film I'd force a friend to watch if they came over.

*A fish, for those who don't know, is a cisgender woman. That's what I also hoped it was when I first heard the term, otherwise, this film would have been very weird.