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Tribeca Review: Elvis e Madona

Posted by: Natasia Rose on May 3, 2010.

05/03/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Elvis e Madona is a fun crowd pleaser from Brazil. The film tackles a gray area of LGBT life, a post-op (with no plans to op, other than a boob job) male to female transsexual, Madona (Igor Cotrim) falls in love with Elvis (Simone Spoladore), a lesbian. Elvis is a sexy pizza delivery boi who aspires to be a photographer. She discovers Madona after Madona’s lover, Tripod Joe, hits her and steals her life savings. Madona was saving that money to produce her own drag show. Madona is devastated, Elvis, the little butch, consoles her. Madona can’t call the cops, they don’t like transwomen, so she accepts the fact that her money is gone. Elvis pursues the warm hearted, flamboyant Madona aggressively.

Their courtship is sweet and simple. For once, there are no homophobes throwing tomatoes on the sidelines. There is little conflict for most of the movie, and the audience can really enjoy seeing these two women develop their relationship. The biggest threat comes from Tripod Joe, who Elvis inadvertently gets locked up after a photograph she takes of a drug deal he is a part of. Meanwhile, the girls get together and have traditional man/woman sex, only Elvis is on top. Are they still gay? The answer is yes, 100%. But both the ladies are thrown for a curveball when…Elvis gets pregnant…and Madona secretly engages in porn with Tripod Joe, to try to recoup the money he stole from her.

There are two problems with this movie. The first being that the English subtitles were awful. The movie is in Portuguese, anyone with a rudimentary understanding of any romance language, can tell that there were whole lines of dialogue that weren’t translated properly. I felt a little jipped, as the native Portuguese speakers in the audience were laughing in places where the English speaking audience wasn’t. There is also the problem of conflict, which is a huge problem for most writers and it is apparent that this is director Marcelo Laffitte’s debut feature. There isn’t enough conflict in the movie and the few obstacles that the women do face and vanquished with little to no real struggle. Elvis forgives Madona for the porn slip just minutes after she discovers it and Elvis’ upperclass family accepts her relationship with Madona after a few choice curse words. However, it’s also the lack of conflict that gives the movie it’s charm. After seeing Ticked off Trannies with Knives, the other trans offering presented by the Tribeca Film Festival, it was refreshing to see a movie that highlights the good in life rather than the bad.

Overall, Elvis e Madona is worth a viewing. It’s a great first date movie and one of the few LGBT movies where the girl gets the girl and they live happily ever after.