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Boys Don't Cry is a painful and intense movie that tackles
a difficult subject matter which will be most remembered for
Hilary Swank's Best Actress Oscar. For me, it was also tough
to watch and not very entertaining.
The movie is based on the true story (although apparently a
fair degree of artistic licence has been taken with the facts)
of a girl named Teen Brandon who renamed herself Brandon Teena
to adopt the life of a man and was brutally raped and murdered
by some ex convicts that she came to know. The movie focuses
on Brandon's move from Lincoln to Twin Falls, Nebraska where
she starts hanging out with factory worker Lana (Chloe Sevigny)
and her dodgy mates John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Thomas (Brendan
Sexton III). The boys treat Brandon as one of the boys, which
in Nebraska involves such exotic events as 'truck surfing' where
you stand up on the back of a truck holding onto rope while
the truck drives you around until you fall off.
Brandon and Chloe end up falling in love (yet somehow Chloe
does not work out Brandon's secret) and Peter starts to get
jealous. Brandon also seems to get caught up in petty crime
which sees her running up against local judiciary. Brandon's
secret eventually does get out of course and we witness the
consequences of man's capacity for hating things that they don't
understand.
This is a powerful movie. Kimberly Pierce has directed it so
that there is a bleak and dark atmosphere. Smalltown Nebraska
is portrayed as a place where there is no hope and no escape.
This is a common theme amongst movies set in small American
towns (e.g. Affliction, A Simple Plan etc). These isolated settings
are always negative and foreboding and the people who live there
are usually portrayed as a bit unhinged, prejudiced, and violent.
In this grey world, we have Hilary Swank's superb performance
as the girl who fools everyone into thinking that she is a boy.
Her acting is not only convincing but it also draws in our sympathy
towards the character, despite the fact that many of us may
not understand or be able to identify with her motivations.
Similar things can be said about the acting and characters of
Chloe Sevigny and the other supporting characters. The performances
were good but I did find it difficult to comprehend what was
driving each of the characters. I found Lana's single minded
devotion to Brandon touching but hard to believe (seemingly
no reaction to Brandon's unusual situation) whereas the reactions
of Peter, Tom, and Lana's seemed incredibly extremist and inhuman.
Maybe this says something about the terrible ways that people
can think and behave. For me, it made the movie difficult to
enjoy and I cannot imagine wanting to see it again. I think
that was a well made movie, but at the end of the day, I like
to go to the cinema to escape and to be entertained.
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