Director: Flavio Alves
Writer: Flavio Alves, John Rotondo (Screenplay)
Starring: Michael Madsen, Edward Answer, Carlie Guevara, Danny Flaherty, Anthony Abdo, Alex Kruz
Plot: A young Mexican trans woman and her grandmother navigate life as undocumented immigrants in New York City.
Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Garden Left Behind starts as we meet the young Mexican trans woman Tina (Guevara) who lives with her grandmother in New York City, working as a taxi driver, preparing for her operation to finish her transition.
As we get to the stage where everything starts coming together for Tina, we see the daily battle she must go through with people not accepting her for who she is, with only her grandmother from her family accepting her choice too.
Thoughts on The Garden Left Behind
Thoughts – The Garden Left Behind is a drama that shows how connected a small trans community can become despite living in an environment where hate crimes against them come up in the news all too often. It shows how the trans lady Tina is always looking over her shoulder in life. As well as showing how she continues to be independent in life. This does feel like an important drama, putting a bigger light on a community that doesn’t get the support it needs in life. The performances are strong for the most part, in what was a difficult role to bring to life, the film should be praised for bringing the trans community to the film, but it does show the weakness in the acting involved though, where most are not trained actors, which doesn’t make it the easiest to connect to with what we see.
Final Thoughts – The Garden Left Behind is an important drama about a community that doesn’t get the support it needs.
