Author: iysmall@aol.com (Ron Small)
BOYS DON'T CRY (1999)
Grade: B+
Director: Kimberly Pierce
Screenplay: Kimberly Pierce, Andy Bienen
Starring: Hilary Swank, Chloe Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III, Allison Folland, Alicia Goranson
The story of Teena Brandon is more than just that, it's the story of Mathew Shepard, possibly even the story of Howard Beach. Shepard was killed for being gay and Beach was killed for being black. Both were killed out of intolerance, possibly fear as well. Teena was killed for being a girl who wanted to be a boy. She changed her appearance (taped her breasts, cut her hair, developed a swagger), and her name (took the Brandon and put it before the Teena) all to become male. Shocking? Not really. When you strip away all the religious propaganda and idiotic moralizing we've had stuffed down our throats since tots, you'll find that this story is really a modernist fairly tale, like the pauper who wanted to be a prince, it is the girl who wanted to be a boy. Though unlike the homogenized fairy tales we're force fed as kids, this one doesn't end happily.
I recall the first time I became aware of Brandon's story. It 'twas the night before finals, a night filled with the worst kind of pre-performance anxiety (well, maybe the second worse kind), but I was covered; I had studied with such abandon (into the wee hours of morning) that my head was overflowing with useless crap I would surely forget by the next week. Before heading to bed I switched on Cinemax hoping for some soft-core porn, as is the usual programming at 2:00 a.m. Instead I found THE BRANDON TEENA STORY, a horribly made, but nonetheless gripping documentary about the brief life and sudden death of Teena Brandon. It was a maddening story, viewing it was tantaumont to being privy to an injustice that could have easily been countered. Maddening because of the stupidity and ignorance of nearly everyone involved. And maddening because of how this innocent was savagely beaten, raped and killed all for her desire to be something she wasn't. And who among us doesn't at least fleetingly have that desire? Is her wish to be a man all that hard to take in these supposedly enlightened times? ("Enlightened" today means we all carry around the same old prejudices, only now they're kept tightly underwraps only to surface in the heat of the moment as DO THE RIGHT THING, Spike Lee's audacious film about intolerance, showed us). After all, we don't think harshly of those who get nose jobs, liposuction, breast implants, all the surgeries designed to make you someone else; the person you want to be. When Brandon is confronted about her switch (during a rape query no less) she's practically forced into saying "I have a sexual identity crisis" when she really doesn't, she's simply more comfortable as a man.
That damn documentary kept me up till 4:00 am, but it was well worth it. Teena Brandon's story is more insightful than anything I picked up in the gargantuan Psychology textbook I had been slogging through the very same night.
In BOYS DON'T CRY, Brandon is played by Hilary Swank in a performance that goes well beyond simple macho posturing. With her close-cropped hair, thin frame, and wide grin, Swank has the appearance of an extremely gawky Matt Damon. But look closer at that smile, the earnestness in her demeanor, the good-natured chivalrousness and she becomes loveable as a man. It's easy to see why a bitter southern townie would fall for her. She has something the other males lack; an aw shucks kindness. She comes with flowers while the others come with beer and condoms.
As the film opens Teena leaves her hometown of Lincoln for Falls City, a trailer park haven. Through a bar fight she becomes acquainted with two loutish rednecks (both extremely well played by Peter Sarsgaard and Brendan Sexton III), and their "girls". One of whom catches Teena's eye. She is Lana (well played by Chloe Sevigny) a bitter townie, who like all bitter townies dreams of escaping the confines of her town. Brandon is in a similar situation; she dreams of escaping the confines of femininity. Teena woos her with sweetness, something the men of this particular town seem to know nothing about (yes a generalization, but a surprisingly appropriate one judging from the documentary). Their relationship is the heart of the film, and it certainly works to counter the almost clinical manner of its brutal, unflinching conclusion. That heart makes the violence much harder to take; we've grown to care about this character and the unrelenting cruelty towards her hurts, as it should.
Kimberly Pierce (the co-writer\director, and certainly a talent to watch) ups the lyrical undertones with in-between-scene segues filmed as heady rushes of prairie life speeded up to the point where all we see are rapid lights blinking with urgency. The film itself gradually becomes more urgent, and a bit more difficult to watch. Pierce doesn't hide much from us. We see the murders, the beatings, and the rape, but here it serves a purpose whereas in a major Hollywood production like THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER it did not. In that movie the rape was filmed by commercial director Simon West as a masochistic gang bang fantasy. West used flashy camera moves and stylishly dank cinematography to make, what looked like, a slick commercial for rape. Pierce hardly moves her camera; she simply presents us with the facts. BOY'S DON'T CRY doesn't preach, or moralize its characters, it chronicles events that did occur. And it gives them life and meaning by taking us into a strangely touching romance that looks to be so simple on the surface. It is simple in all its ROMEO AND JULIET tragic romanticism, but complex because of the one major addition.
Pierce's film is uncompromising in its content. I can just imagine if it had been made as a mainstream film (as was proposed). The movie features the kind of raw intensity, taboo exploration, and emotional truths that used to be (pre-Tarantino) the hallmark of independent film. Now amidst the rotting corpses of irony laden "hipster" indies, BOYS DON'T CRY stands out as a sobering experience.
www.geocities.com/incongruity98 (Ron's Movie Reviews)
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