BOYS DON'T CRY (1999) by George Wu
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)
She was born Teena Brandon in Lincoln, Nebraska, but she introduced herself to everyone as Brandon Teena. She dressed like a boy, acted like a boy, and had girlfriends whom she apparently treated better than had she been a boy. Even after she was found out, raped, and murdered, Brandon's girlfriends remained enraptured of him, for in every case aside from Brandon's biological gender, Brandon was a "he." Susan Muska and Gréta Olafsdóttir produced The Brandon Teena Story, a documentary released last year recording these events. That film was poorly-made, unintentionally exploitative, but nevertheless, enormously powerful owing to its subject matter alone. Now comes first-time filmmaker, Kimberly Peirce's dramatic narrative version, Boys Don't Cry. It's well-made, non-exploitative, and enormously powerful owing to Peirce's creative direction and her stars bravura performances.
Following actual events pretty closely, Peirce and her co-writer Andy Bienen pick up the story from Brandon's move from Lincoln to Falls City, Nebraska, where Brandon meets and falls in love with local girl, Lana. This incurs the wraths of Brandon's heretofore friends, John Lotter and Tom Nissen, both ex-cons. What is impressive about Boys Don't Cry is that Peirce doesn't sensationalize the material, which is easily done in lesser hands with such subjects as gender-bending, rape, and murder. Nor does Peirce, a lesbian, exude an agenda. Brandon is shown warts and all as a thief and habitual liar (about far more than his gender), while John and Tom are welcoming and amicable before they uncover Brandon's secret. Peirce even allows that John's loathing for Brandon may derive more from his jealousy of Lana than homophobia, though homophobia abets his actions. Brandon does not come off as a martyr, but very much an individual. Brandon refuses the label of lesbian. The subtext is gender fluidity and the questioning of why we have to categorize sexual orientation at all. Labels emphasize difference, and difference is a code word for misanthropy.
Peirce intersperses wonderful time-lapse sequences of the horizon, the clouds, the stars, even a refinery throughout the film. While these could just be throwaway flourishes, their beauty and timing point to a transcendent hope in the characters' dreams, no matter how stupid they may be, like Brandon's preoccupation with Memphis or Lana's wanting to become a karaoke singer. Only at the end, does Pierce's romanticization get the better of her, in a fictional love scene between Lana and the doomed Brandon.
The entire cast is superb. Actress Hilary Swank holds nothing back in giving the character of Brandon brashness, longing, hope, naivete, and denial. Matching her every step of the way is Chloë Sevigny as Lana, and their chemistry together is wholly convincing. Sevigny (along with Sarah Polley) is among the great actors of her generation. Peter Sarsgaard imbues John with both humanity and barbarous malevolence. In two smaller roles of great merit are Alicia Goranson, who plays Candace, Brandon's first friend in Falls City, and Jeanetta Arnette as Lana's outlandish mom.
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