Boys Don’t Cry
Boys Don’t Cry is the feature debut of Kimberly Pierce, who co-wrote the screenplay with Andy Bienen. It stars Hilary Swank, Chloe Sevigny, Alicia Goranson (most notably from the TV series Roseanne), Brendan Sexton 3d, Peter Sarsgaard, Alison Folland and Jeanetta Arnette. It is currently playing at the Embarcadero Cinema.
You
know the Brandon Teena story. You saw it on television.
You read about it in the tabloids. And now there’s a movie about it.
So you go to see the movie. You know that something awful will happen
eventually. You sit watching, waiting for the event to happen. The laughter
in the film has an edge to it, an eerily creeping foreshadowing. You
are never in the moment. All laughter and love will surely end in tragedy.
Now, you are Brandon Teena and it is your last few weeks
alive. You have passed as a man. You are living the life of a man.
You are spinning a web around this basic untruth, but the laughter is
real. The love is strong, the sex passionate. But somewhere it must
end. Truth has that way about it. With each kiss, a hand moves closer
to the beltline and excuses are running out. You are
never in the moment. All laughter and love will lead to
the truth.
It is a rare thing when a film conveys its content successfully through its form. And when it happens it is magic.
There is a basic suspense to being a cross dresser. It is the final test when one can “pass.” But the awful truth is that when one is found out to have just been passing, too often violence ensues.
And there is basic suspense in a true crime dramatization. We know something awful will happen. We have all heard the Brandon Teena story. And as we watch, and as Brandon passes, there is suspense. There is discomfort. There is an eerie foreshadowing that all cannot last. Brandon struggles to keep his identity a secret. We watch and wait for it to be discovered. This tension is the backbone of the film Boys Don’t Cry. From this springboard leaps tremendous acting, brilliant cinematography, and an utterly human look at a story that was a tabloid favorite.
In some of the best acting of this year, Hilary Swank plays the androgynous Brandon with a gorgeous glow. She is magic when coupled with Chloe Sevigny, whose captures our lust and imagination as Lana must have captured Brandon’s. They are as stunning as Peter Sarsgaard and Brendan Sexton 3d are frightening. Packaged with outstanding visual gusto by Director of Photography Jim Denault, Boys Don’t Cry is a moving account of this tragic story. It is a love story, a story of sexual identity, a portrait of Middle America, a comment on masculinity and violence, and a tender treatise on the reckless abandon of those in love. What it is not is an exploitative tabloid tale.
Swank’s eloquent performance is deserved of the highest honors. Her Brandon is dashing, empathetic, sexy and raw. It is this energy that captures the heart of this tragedy - just as easily as hope can create love, hate can take it away.
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