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Amos Lassen wrote on 03/02/2011:

“I Want What I Want”
A Look at Loneliness
Amos Lassen
When you watch “I Am What I Want”, you become even more aware of how times have changed. Made in 1972, the movie was once scandalous but today is quite mild. It is the story of Roy who becomes Wendy, the woman “he always knew he was meant to be”. Anne Heywood plays the lead of the young man who leaves his abusive father and begins life as female. Since Roy knew nothing about life as a female, he made many mistakes as well as faces problems of not being a total female.

Typically a 70’s movie with classic clothes and music, there is no mistaking that this is not a new film but it is an important film in that it was one of the first to explore issues that had not been seen on the screen before. This is a small low budget film and this is obvious throughout. I had a bit of a problem with a woman being cast as a man who becomes a woman but Heywood does quite well.

This is a personal film and Heywood shines in the lead. This could easily have lapsed into melodrama but instead it looks at loneliness rather what some then considered as a sexual strangeness. This also could have been a very campy film but because it deals with personal anguish and not sexuality it rises above other less successful films. There is no sex in the film per se except to emphasize the loneliness of Wendy.