Hit &
Miss
Hit & Miss is a 2012 TV drama that aired on Sky
Atlantic in the UK and DirecTV's Audience Network in the USA. The story opens with a dark hooded
figure sitting in a car at the top of a parking structure. A man walks up a
ramp then head to his car. The hooded person exits the car and begins pursuit.
The man sees him and starts to run; dark figure draws a gun equipped with a
silencer and shoots him, walks over to the man on the ground pumps a few more
bullets into him and returns to his own car, pulls down the hood and reveals
the face of a beautiful woman, her name is Mia, (Chloe Sevigny). She’s a
contract killer for the Manchester mob.
When Mia arrives home
to clean up after the hit. She removes her clothes to take a shower. She turns
and in a full-frontal nude scene we see that Mia has a penis; she is in fact a transsexual.
Later she meets up with Eddie (Peter Wight), her boss, who debriefs her on the
hit. At the end of the meeting Eddie hands Mia a letter that came for her. She opens
it and receives some shocking news. When she was a man she fathered a son, Ryan
(Jorden Bennie), with her ex-girlfriend, Wendy (Rosina Carbone), who is dying from cancer. Mia is named by the mother as guardian of the
boy and his three half-siblings who live in a farmhouse in rural Yorkshire.
Mia is shocked;
she panics; she says there is no way she’s going to go; she wants nothing to do
with them; then her heart softens. In the next scene Mia is driving on a rural
road; she’s going to see Wendy and the kids. When she arrives, Wendy has
already passed. She meets the kids who are struggling without their mother. The
oldest girl, Riley (Karla Crome), has taken on responsibility of running the
family but she’s a 16-year-old girl and still a child herself. She’s very
hostile toward Mia even before she learns of Mia’s gender history. All she
wants is for Mia sign papers granting her legal custody but Mia is not so
inclined. She decides to stick around awhile to see how they’re getting along
which is not very well.
Mia has lived a
very solitary existence. She lives in a loft where she has her own private gym.
She spends much of her time working out, reading and watching TV. She goes to
bars but she’s very guarded. She straight but fears getting intimate with a man
lest her secret is revealed.
This is a very
brave television series. The nudity, several times we see Mia naked, penis and
all. For me the first time was a shock. Those first scenes defined who Mia was
at the beginning of the film; the remainder is about who she becomes. How can
one be an assassin and the mom to 5 children?
I loved this
series. Mia is a very conflicted character trying to balance two very different
lives. She fell in love with the children and life in the country. She even
found a boyfriend. Unfortunately, being a mob assassin isn’t a career you can
just walk away from. If you leave, it will be in a box. The conflicting lives
began their clash on her very next hit. She goes to Eddie’s office for her next
assignment. He describes her next mark and suggests at home would be the best
place to kill him.
“Are their
children involved?” she asks.
“That’s never
bothered you before; is this going to be a problem for you?”
Everything isn’t
going well in Yorkshire either. She’s overcome Riley’s hostility (she hid her
hormone pills from her once) only to have trouble with their lecherous and
violent landlord. These two worlds are destined to collide and when the do she
sees how her presence has effected the children. Eddie is drawn into the
country world while the kids are drawn into his and hers. How will this play
out?
The series does
away with the trope of the crazy transsexual murderer. Mia is nothing like the
Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs or Bobbi in 1980’s Dressed to Kill or
Frank Rodrigues/Tomboy in Re(assignment). She’s not crazy murder or forced into
a sex change. Killing is what she does for a living; it’s her job. At the
beginning of the story she’s an isolated and cold blooded killer while her
marks aren’t exactly boy scouts either. During the series, we see Mia change
into a strong mother who will do This is a British production so you can be
sure the actors are very good, including the smaller children. The lone
American in the production is anything to protect her kids.
The production is
very good; Manchester is gritty while the Yorkshire countryside is lovely. The
cinematography is excellent as are the sets. The interiors are lighted and the
farm location are consistent with what you would expect of a struggling farm.
This is a British
production and the actors are of the best quality, including the small
children. All the characters are believable as is the premise of the story.
Chloe Sevigny, the lone American in the cast, once again is excellent as Mia.
In an interview, she said the first time she put on the prosthetic penis she
wept thinking about how difficult it must be for trans people to have their
bodies out of sync with their identities.
I spent the day
binge watching the series, then a second time at a more leisurely pace Watch
this series; I was profoundly moved by the story and I hope you will be too.
Some in the trans community
may object to Sevigny cast in the transgender role. The role of Mia was
difficult and called for an supremely talented actor of Chloe Sevigny caliber.