Daniela Vega in A Fantastic Woman (Sony Pictures Classics)

A Fantastic Woman, from Chile, is one of those films that come around every couple years that will make you wish there wasn’t a separate category for foreign films at the Oscars, given that it’s one of the best movies from last year. Daniela Vega gives a stellar performance as Marina, a transgender woman whose lover, 25 years her senior, suddenly dies in the middle of the night. The film follows Marina over the course of the next week as she battles with her deceased partner’s family over custody of his apartment and the dog their shared, as well as with a police detective who is duty bound to investigate the death as a possible sex crime.

The absence of Orlando (Francisco Reyes) is greatly felt; he’s the missing layer of protection between Marina and the outer world, clueless and judgmental. While Orlando is still fighting for his life in the ER from an undiagnosed ailment, a doctor pulls Marina into the hallway, asks about her relationship to the patient, and then rudely insists she tell him her legal, male-gendered name. Assaults like this do not stop. Marina’s confidantes are few and far between. While the presence of Orlando, a well-to-do gentleman, could have provided her protection, Marina must face obstacles on her own—meanwhile wishing she could just have a moment to breathe and mourn her lover.

Sebastián Lelio’s film never leaves Marina’s presence, which lends to its empathetic vibe—you can’t help but feel what she is feeling and become enraged against her detractors. The worst bit comes when Orlando’s ex-wife, who has just made Marina return Orlando’s car to her, confronts her in the parking garage and says when she looks at Marina, she doesn’t know what she is seeing. Then she compares her to a chimera, a creature from Greek mythology and a combination of several different animals and often used as a synonym for the grotesque.

This is not to say the film is always this heavy. In flashbacks, Marina and Orlando’s lives are filled with splendor; Marina works as a waitress (and seems to be a good one) while at night she is an aspiring singer. (Vega in real life is also a singer—and a good one.) It is only when faced with those who blindly judge her that she is forced to go into defensive mode.

During the many moments of extreme pressure, Lelio keeps the camera fixed on Vega. Marina’s stoicism, which reveals the subtlest of emotion through the quivers of the lips or the movement of the eyes, is just one facet of this great performance. We understand Marina’s perseverance and her spirit of survival. What I mentioned earlier about Orlando perhaps being her protector? Well, the image we have of Marina at the beginning is altered by the end. At that point, we understand what Orlando saw in her, what strangers do not see in her, and the source of the film’s title.