Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

I pride myself on being open to new directors and film houses. This seemed interesting, so I gave it a shot. From the very first scene, one can feel that undefinable awkwardness of bad acting. The dialog from the first scene was unbelievable. Everyone spoke like they were high school kids. I really regret this movie. I think the worst sin this movie made was the message. I won't say what that message was but when you get the the end of this flick you will see exactly what I am talking about.If the director ever reads these forums this is what I would like to say to him- you can't make EVERYONE be a stereotype or off the wall impossible character or it won't work. Not everyone has to be (or can be) stifler.

Amanda has bad dialog, poor scene writing & a plot that fails to satisfy. A dumb opening scene in which Joe is surprised for his 40th birthday by having his friends and family turn on the lights just as he turns on a porno and is about to start masturbating. This is supposed to draw humor from the awkwardness, but Joe talks about it shortly after with his parents, which is the last thing ANY person would do! This leads to a pretentious and insulting introduction of the main characters, in which Joe shows Amanda a secret door to a balcony, where her shushing him to hear nothing is interrupted by his niece giving him a handmade windchime, which he obviously doesn't want or care about. A schmaltzy dating montage follows a lame first date, in which she decides to leave after 10 seconds. He pathetically begs and pleads for her to give him a chance, to have the rest of the restaurant patrons applaud, and as he turns around to thank them, she leaves, but nobody bothers to tell him she is walking out. The characters are wooden and lack subtlety, especially Joe's parents, who act like two people who only just met, rather than who have been married for 40 years, and talk to their son like he's their neighbor. The dating montage includes scenes of him watching her from afar, and following her in a cab when she's jogging. A mysterious black sedan is supposed to lend the film an air of mystery, but serves more of a deus ex machina purpose by the end. A supposedly romantic gesture on her part is to give him a picture of her in lingerie for him to masturbate to, which we then see.On the honeymoon, Amanda says she is a post-SRS MTF & Joe bolts. His confidant tells him she moved away & he falls apart over the rest of the movie. A speed dating scene with weirdos ends with Amanda appearing to him. He still hangs out outside her apartment. It turns out his friend was lying to Joe in order to date Amanda. Yet despite this, he never saw Amanda coming out of or going into her apartment? Also, Amanda was lying about being MTF in order to find true love to then gain an inheritance, because her mom left her dad (the man in the black sedan) for a woman when she was a tot. Even though Amanda meets Joe's parents early on, she never introduces hers.Do yourself a favor, watch something else. With all the masturbation and stalking in this film, I have to wonder if the writer wasn't just some creep who rubs off and follows women around. Evidently his day job is making movies for the Bob and Tom show, so that he can make shorts and films like this. His leads are a couple of actors who typically get bit parts, and secondary roles are played by actors who felt like they were the director's friends. This film manages to offend the trans community, the straight community, and is just generally poorly written. The look of joy on Joe's face, upon finding out that Amanda was born a woman is so wrong that it isn't even funny. His exclaiming "Yes!" leaves you wondering if his proclamation of love before was genuine or not, and why he isn't exclaiming "what?!"The film ends with them driving a fancy red sports car up to their mcmansion and talking about how they're going to live out the rest of their lives, and her doing something sassy so that it shows she still surprises him. I would call this corny, except that it's too badly written.

Ariana Dubynin is a real dish. Not only is she gorgeous but she is extremely talented,,see her resume. You can not tell she is Russian by her accent, her English is perfect. This is one of the best romance movies i have ever seen and the ending is really wonderful. I have watched this movie eight times and can not get enough of Ariana, though i have heard that there are thousands of lonely gorgeous women in the CIS countries. so i am not surprised she is gorgeous. Why have we not heard of her before? Where has she been hiding? She is going to be as famous as Julia Roberts and i hope to see her in another romance movie soon. Adrenalin Motion Pictures have a potential super star in Arana. I think the production is great.

NEWS UPDATE: "Amanda" is now available on ALL THE ON DEMAND CABLE SYSTEMS in addition to NETFLIX and iTunes. Search "All Movies" and locate her in the mix. Thanks.Hey anyone who is actually out there busting their butt to get their indie movie's funded, shot and distributed deserves, at the very least, a nice thumbs up and maybe a wink and a nod.To all the other independent movie-makers out there, this one at least says "it can be done!" Local acting talent is often an issue, although most of the talent in "Amanda" should be applauded for their work. The quality of this indie film is really quite good and the cinematographer here has worked on several very good movies. Believe me, there are thousands of titles on the wall at your local video rental store that are total time wasters.This one, I'm happy to say, is not one of those.