Amanda
Amanda
PG-13 | 04 October 2009 (USA)
Amanda Trailers

Joe is a 40-year-old womanizer until he meets Amanda. It's love at first sight and a match made in heaven. They enjoy a storybook romance and decide to get married, much to the dismay of Joe's quirky but loving parents. It's marital bliss until Joe discovers that Amanda was born a man and had a sex change at age 18! Devastated by Amanda's shocking admission, Joe sends her out the door. After much thought, however, Joe comes to his senses and realizes that Amanda was the best thing that ever happened to him. In his quest to find Amanda and rekindle their relationship, he discovers the real truth about love. This charming romantic comedy features Randy Ryan (Public Enemies) and Ariana Dubynin (The List) in a film that identifies true love and explores gender identity.

Reviews
AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.
Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.
Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
zif ofoz I actually thought the actress that played Amanda was a guy in some kinda cheap drag!Then I discover it is actually a girl!!!So there you have the most interesting element in this dumb movie - a girl playing a guy that became a girl. Didn't Julie Andrews do this decades ago? You can spend better time looking up the answer to my question above than watching this movie - which - by the way - is totally devoid of any acting skills!I'm actually sorry I watched it!
jcinsov I pride myself on being open to new directors and film houses. This seemed interesting, so I gave it a shot. From the very first scene, one can feel that undefinable awkwardness of bad acting. The dialog from the first scene was unbelievable. Everyone spoke like they were high school kids. I really regret this movie. I think the worst sin this movie made was the message. I won't say what that message was but when you get the the end of this flick you will see exactly what I am talking about.If the director ever reads these forums this is what I would like to say to him- you can't make EVERYONE be a stereotype or off the wall impossible character or it won't work. Not everyone has to be (or can be) stifler.
karlhl Amanda has bad dialog, poor scene writing & a plot that fails to satisfy. A dumb opening scene in which Joe is surprised for his 40th birthday by having his friends and family turn on the lights just as he turns on a porno and is about to start masturbating. This is supposed to draw humor from the awkwardness, but Joe talks about it shortly after with his parents, which is the last thing ANY person would do! This leads to a pretentious and insulting introduction of the main characters, in which Joe shows Amanda a secret door to a balcony, where her shushing him to hear nothing is interrupted by his niece giving him a handmade windchime, which he obviously doesn't want or care about. A schmaltzy dating montage follows a lame first date, in which she decides to leave after 10 seconds. He pathetically begs and pleads for her to give him a chance, to have the rest of the restaurant patrons applaud, and as he turns around to thank them, she leaves, but nobody bothers to tell him she is walking out. The characters are wooden and lack subtlety, especially Joe's parents, who act like two people who only just met, rather than who have been married for 40 years, and talk to their son like he's their neighbor. The dating montage includes scenes of him watching her from afar, and following her in a cab when she's jogging. A mysterious black sedan is supposed to lend the film an air of mystery, but serves more of a deus ex machina purpose by the end. A supposedly romantic gesture on her part is to give him a picture of her in lingerie for him to masturbate to, which we then see.On the honeymoon, Amanda says she is a post-SRS MTF & Joe bolts. His confidant tells him she moved away & he falls apart over the rest of the movie. A speed dating scene with weirdos ends with Amanda appearing to him. He still hangs out outside her apartment. It turns out his friend was lying to Joe in order to date Amanda. Yet despite this, he never saw Amanda coming out of or going into her apartment? Also, Amanda was lying about being MTF in order to find true love to then gain an inheritance, because her mom left her dad (the man in the black sedan) for a woman when she was a tot. Even though Amanda meets Joe's parents early on, she never introduces hers.Do yourself a favor, watch something else. With all the masturbation and stalking in this film, I have to wonder if the writer wasn't just some creep who rubs off and follows women around. Evidently his day job is making movies for the Bob and Tom show, so that he can make shorts and films like this. His leads are a couple of actors who typically get bit parts, and secondary roles are played by actors who felt like they were the director's friends. This film manages to offend the trans community, the straight community, and is just generally poorly written. The look of joy on Joe's face, upon finding out that Amanda was born a woman is so wrong that it isn't even funny. His exclaiming "Yes!" leaves you wondering if his proclamation of love before was genuine or not, and why he isn't exclaiming "what?!"The film ends with them driving a fancy red sports car up to their mcmansion and talking about how they're going to live out the rest of their lives, and her doing something sassy so that it shows she still surprises him. I would call this corny, except that it's too badly written.
pm-786-189144 I am a big, and I mean big, independent film fan. I travel to festivals JUST to check out all the stuff that ends up under the radar. I've seen a lot of movies and I saw this one at the Louisville International Film Festival. It easily ranks an 8 on my list. Very professionally produced, although at least two of the eight main actors were not performing on all cylinders. That's bound to happen. Regardless, there is some very funny and original writing here. And I knew there was going to be a twist at the end, but I didn't figure on THIS twist.I liked it. Go see rent/buy this movie. It's an easy addition to your DVD collection.