There are rare moments in the cinema where awe and wonder overcome reason. What you know are actors and sets and lighting and scripted lines become more than just a good movie -- they become real, a separate universe where you lose the sense of sitting in a theatre and become totally, blissfully, unconsciously immersed in the world of the film.

These moments are rarely large, sweeping ones; the ship sinking in Titanic, Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea, and shots of the desert in Lawrence of Arabia are the only ones that come to mind. No, usually these are small, almost undetctable flickers of reality: the dewy glimmer in Audrey Hepburn's eyes in Breakfast at Tiffany's, the silent anger of Marlon Brando in The Godfather, the weary confusion of Cher in Moonstruck. These are miniscule details in actuality, but very often, they are what make the difference between a good film and a great one.

Such small moments fill almost every moment of Hilary Swank's tour-de-force performance in BOYS DON'T CRY, one of the most important and alarming films released this year. Swank's performance as the young 'boy' Brandon Teena is a star-making turn, the center and foundation of Kimberly Peirce's startling debut film.

Based on a true story, BOYS DON'T CRY follows the last weeks in the life of Brandon Teena. Born a biological female, Teena Brandon was convinced that her sex was a genetic defect, and that she was, in fact, a boy. Too poor to explore costly gender re-assignment surgery, however, Teena took a tremendous step by choosing to live as a male, changing her name to Brandon Teena. Brandon fell in with a new group of friends in Falls City, Nebraska, including John (Peter Sarsgaard), Tom (Brendan Sexton III), and Lana (Chloe Sevigny). Things work out initially, as Brandon is able to blend in with his male friends. Even more promising, he falls in love with Lana and begins a youthful (and sexual) relationship.

Two weeks later, Brandon was murdered

Fate, however, changes everything. A parking ticket snafu reveals Brandon's secret, and his onetime friends, now angry and betrayed, brutally rape and beat him. Lana is left to facing her shifting reality in the face of her romantic feelings. The ending is perhaps the only ending possible in an unforgiving world; it rings with unbearable truth and horrific sadness.

There has already been one brilliant film about Brandon Teena -- The Brandon Teena Story, an incisive 1997 documentary. Kimberly Peirce, the director and co-writer of BOYS DON'T CRY, did enormous amounts of research, including interviews with the real-life Lana and retracing Teena's journey. The expertise Peirce has developed on her subject gives the film a bracing aura of reality, but her artistry has allowed her to shape the story dramatically, politically and emotionally. Pierce also bravely faces the murky and convoluted issues of sexuality head-on; a lesser director might have copped out on the relationship between Lana and Brandon, or ignored the very real implications it has for heterosexuality, homosexuality, and the grey areas in between. Fox Searchlight, who is distributing this modern morality play, should seek the Academy Awards the film deserves.

Hilary Swank is the find of the year, whose previous major role (The Next Karate Kid) gave no hint of the depth and range she finds as Brandon. Effortlessly charming and mercurial, she is believable as a male from the first frame. Still, there's something that's always not quite wholly male; her androgyny fuels the fascinating, complex contradictions of Brandon and his life. Equally matched in Chloe Sevigny (whose doe-eyed beauty and slow-burn passion make one wonder why she doesn't get all of Sarah Polley's roles), Brandon and Lana are a love story for the new millennium, a mismatched couple that find perfection in imperfection.

BOYS DON'T CRY, like last year's American History X, is an important record of internalized bigotry in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Brandon Teena is an alternative hero, but a hero nonetheless. While I'm sure that Brandon would be horrified to have become the subject of a major motion picture (not to mention a martyr of the civil rights movement), his life's story is a prayer and a testament to a better future.

-- Gabriel Shanks

Review text copyright ©1999 Gabriel Shanks and Cozzi fan Tutti, © 2003 Mixed Reviews. All rights reserved. Reproduction of text in whole or in part in any form or in any medium without express written permission of Mixed Reviews or the author is prohibited.

Back To Top | Home | Archive | E-Mail Harvest