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Actually, that WAS a banana in her pocket...
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Jun 7, 2008
19
of
23 people found this review helpful
With the Matthew Shepard verdict then in the news, BOYS DON'T CRY was fresh as that year's headlines. This is the true story of Brandon Teena, a gay youngster who was raped and murdered in 1993 when a girlfriend and her goons found out that Brandon Teena was really a cross-dressing young woman named Teena Brandon (Hilary Swank). To approach this movie, we must begin with the ending -- knowing how Teena dies. The filmmakers use the sensationalist, tabloid drama to bait us. They offer increasingly more profound revelations in the story to draw us in. It's as though they concede that the first question in our minds is, simply, 'How did this woman pass as a man with the women she was with?' Those details -- the rolled up sock behind the fly, and so forth -- are divulged piecemeal, to keep us interested, while more important strands are woven into the script. Two key, deeper questions soon emerge and they twist together like pythons locked in a deadly embrace to dominate the story. First, there's the question of Teena's sexual identity struggle. There is something quintessentially American about her journey, getting on the road and re-inventing the idea of who she is and who she wants to become. Yet, there's also an unhealthy recklessness underlying her actions, that's quite disconcerting. Finally, there is the puzzlement of her murder/er. Why would anyone do it, and why did this particular young man commit this act? If we did not know where this was going, if we did not know that Teena Brandon was destined to become an ironic icon of American intolerance, we might find the early part of the movie tedious and pointless. These people embody all that is ill-connoted by the moniker of "trailer trash." Their idea of a good time is to spin on carousels after sniffing glue, or to take turns 'skiing' on the back of flat bed trucks. Teena's dates don't remember her name the morning after, so, who cares if Teena pulls the wool over these folks? The stakes are raised when Teena meets a hopeless karaoke singer named Lana (Chloë Sevigny), and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, John (Peter Sarsgaard). Sevigny and Sarsgaard breathe new life into the story. Sevigny is exceptional as Teena's not-quite-unsuspecting girlfriend. But, Sarsgaard gets the tough part of playing a villain we must like. He pulls it off, and his role makes the whole movie tenable. If he had been just another detachable villain, this would have been an entirely different review. BOYS DON'T CRY is not a cross-dressing or even a gay-bashing film, because it does not take a monotone, movie-of-the-week approach. It is about passion, and tragedy, and searching, and love. Come for the smut, you'll stay for the smarts. (Carlos Colorado) |
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