THIS MOVIE WAS ONE OF THE MOST MOVING AND EMOTIONAL MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN. THE PERFORMANCES WERE FLAWLESS. I FELT SO MUCH FOR THESE CHARACTERS THAT I DIDN'T WANT THE MOVIE TO END. IT IS A MUST SEE.

Thank you HBO and Jane Anderson for an emotional roller coaster of a film that examines one not-so-simple theme: Your partner of 25 years wants a sex change! Of course...this IS after all a movie made for cable which tosses convention to the wind!
Award winners Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson (who seems to be able to play ANY role) go at each other through love,hate,laughter,tears and sense and sensibility as Irma and Roy who after 25 years must grapple with the future survival of their marriage when Roy reveals that he has always been a woman trapped in a man's body.This is no laughing matter,yet director Jane Anderson infuses this utterly absorbing screenplay with enough raw and touching humor, that keeps this film from becoming too maudlin.It is the exact amount of drama peppered with light-heartedness performed by two phenomenal veteran geniuses that makes this film a most interesting and unconventional winner.If you are a lover of character studies and great acting, this one is right up your alley; no car chases, no killing....just raw emotion! That appeals to me!

A best drama from HBO production, sensible and human. Jessica Lange is great and Tom is better than never.

As expected from an HBO production, this TS coming out tale is loud and crude.

Essentially, Normal is She's Not There, with a rougher transition, all the better for a whopping big happy ending. The protagonist Roy (played by Tom Wilkinson), a church-going, size-20 tractor salesman, is the least compelling and convincing character. Or maybe it's just a weak premise - TS outta the blue. Either way, Irma, the conservative Donna Reed-type wife provides Jessica Lange an ultra-wattage screen turn. Nevertheless, the mildly butch teeniebopper daughter (ably played by Hayden Panettiere) steals the show. Terse, laconic, with grandstanding punctuations, Normal's biggest problem is its reliance on violence to communicate "passage": Husband grabs wife and forces a kiss on her to "communicate his love," Dad smacks son to "get through" to him and gain his respect. That's NOT a positive message! Meanwhile, Roy's macho boss wears a pink shirt - ooo, subtle. Finally, Roy "becomes a woman" by demonstrating abject (fem) submissiveness: she "changes" her vicious father's soiled pants without any hope of receiving kindness in return; like, presto.

Whattya expect from TeeVee?

A very well written movie, I deffinatly like the small town setting which can hit close to home and bring a more realistic drama into the many lives of those, outside big cities. Set apart from steriotyped lives of the Transgendered, Richard Bull is extrordinary in the problems and frustrations of the "Normal" Transgendered. Jessica Lang was incredibale in portraying the real struggles of the not so excepting wife and plays no falsehood as to what many wives live with when they have to deal and/or cope with their partners and what can be devistating partnerships. This movie has a very comfortable portrayal of "Real Lives"