Flawless

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

A flamboyant transvestite going-on transsexual (Philip Seymour Hoffman) must give voice lessons to his stroke-patient neighbor, a homophobic ex-cop (Robert DeNiro). Previously each had suffered as the other's insufferable neighbor in their Manhattan apartment building. This is perhaps the first flaw in Flawless: fleshing out the commonalities between stereotyped characters may be a worthwhile endeavor, but it doesn't lend itself to innovative filmmaking.

Both leads perform well, without surprises, making the best of a distracting thug-drug subplot. To its credit, Flawless maintains a distance between the two men; their conceptions of masculinity irritate and intrigue the other too much to slip into buddy-buddy repartee (scathing one-liners being Hoffman's weapon of choice).