What It’s About
Over Christmas in a downscale LA populated with cheap hotels and strip malls, Sin-Dee Rella (Rodriguez), a transgender black sex worker, reunites with best friend and fellow hustler Alexandra (also transgender), after a brief jail stint. When Sin-Dee learns her pimp Chester (Ransone) has been cavorting with white hooker Dinah (O’Hagan), she’s enraged, and goes looking for them. Meanwhile, Armenian cab driver Raznik (Karagulian) has a secret weakness for these ladies, and soon abandons his wife’s suffocating family to seek them out.
Why We Love It
Sean Baker’s bold, fresh, eye-popping debut feature was shot using just three iPhones and a mostly non-professional cast. The result is miraculous – a story at once sad, funny and inspiring, about two outcasts on society’s bottom-rung who need each other more than they realize. Baker romances the pastely decay of the area, and the story, which could have been grim, bursts with humor and humanity, largely thanks to stellar work from Rodriguez and Taylor. “Tangerine” heralded the arrival of a gifted new filmmaker, and hallelujah.