Boys Don't Cry [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Amazon.co.uk Review

When Brandon Teena, a young man with an infectious, aw-shucks grin and an angelic face that's all angles, wanders into Falls City, Nebraska, he takes to the town as if it's a second skin. In little time he's fallen in with a gang of goofy if temperamental redneck boys, found himself a girlfriend, and befriended enough people to form something of a small family. In fact, it's the best time Brandon's ever had. However, there are shadows looming over Brandon's life: a court date for grand theft auto, a chequered criminal record, and a seemingly innocuous speeding ticket that could prove to be his undoing. Why? Because as it turns out, Brandon Teena is actually Teena Brandon, a woman masquerading as a man. This fascinating story was based on real-life events (as documented in The Brandon Teena Story) that occurred in 1993 and ended in tragedy: Brandon's rape and murder by two of his supposed friends. Despite this horrible outcome, however, in the hands of director Kimberly Peirce (who co-wrote the unfettered screenplay with Andy Bienen), Brandon's story becomes not oppressive or preachy, but rather oddly and touchingly transcendent, anchored by Hilary Swank's phenomenal, unsentimental (and Oscar-winning) performance. Swank inhabits Brandon's contradictions and passions with a natural vitality most actresses would refuse to give themselves over to. Brandon's deception is doomed from the start, but Swank's enthusiasm is infectious, and when Brandon starts romancing the sloe-eyed Lana (a pitch-perfect Chloë Sevigny), he finds a soulmate who wants to transcend boundaries and fated identities as much as he does. The last part of the film, when Brandon's true identity is discovered, is truly painful to watch, but in between the agony there are touching moments of sweetness between Brandon and Lana, who wrestles with the truth of who Brandon actually is. You'll come away from Boys Don't Cry with affection and respect for Brandon, not pity. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful.......2007-07-06

This film was sheer brilliance. It captivates you and opens your eyes to a world some may find foreign. Explicit, maybe yes, but if their were no intimate scenes in this film, it would not convey the true life of Brandon Teena.

I have nothing but praise for this film and its ever twisting and amazing tale.
Please, open your mind to the life of someone who will have an impact on the way you think about people forever.

Floods of tears.......2007-05-15

From the beginning to the end you are hooked on the true story of Brandon. You get excited at the fact that he can be who he wants but then let down and frustrated as he continues to lie to people, yet you can understand his fears as the conciquences are displayed. And by the end you are in floods of tears and dismayed, but don't let that stop you as it is a film that just simply cannot be missed.

The last 15 mins of the film had me in floods of tears!.......2007-05-04

I had never heard about the "Brandon Teena" story until I stumbled upon it on the IMDb after looking up the fantastic film "Soldier's Girl". It recommended "Boys Don't Cry".
I read several reviews on this film, and bought it later that day.

Having now armed myself with plenty of information, and hopefully knowing what to expect, I sat down last night to watch it...

Throughout the first hour I really enjoyed it, it was great to see young Brandon making a life for himself (and being able to be himself). Then when the last 20 or so minutes of the film came along, I found it so unbearable that I couldn't contain the tears.

This was more so, as I knew what I was watching had really happened, and I couldn't beleive that in this day and age people would treat Brandon the way those bast**ds did!

I would highly recommend people to watch this unforgettable film. I will be showing it to friends this weekend. And look forward to see what they make of it.

A must see - 10/10

Unforgettable story.......2007-04-02

This is the true story of Teena Brandon (Hillary Swank), a lonely teenage girl living as a man, "Brandon Teena." She's been in trouble with the law and has no roots. When she comes to a new town, she is befriended by a "family" of perpetually drunk low-lifes, and is attracted to Lana (Chloe Sevigny), who dreams of going to Memphis and being a karaoke singer. She and Brandon fall in love, angering two men who begin to suspect Brandon's true identity.

Swank's performance as Brandon/Teena is simply remarkable. She conveys the heartbreak and misery of an outsider, a misfit, and the need for love that is universal; she won the Oscar in 1999 for this role. Sevigny is convincing as the girl who falls in love with both Brandon and Teena. Despite its low-budget (Swank earned only $3,000), this is an extremely well-made, thought-provoking, and deeply moving for adults. (There are sexual and extremely violent scenes.) A riveting, shocking, and very sad story with sensitive acting and direction.

Men might be male fetishists.......2007-03-19

A very disquieting film that tells a story that seems so unreal that we need to discover, at the very end of it, the fate of the protagonists to believe it is a true story. It is first of all a story about the gender identity of a girl, Teena Brandon, who sees herself as a boy and wants to behave as one, to be one. She manages to go through it all and falls in love with a girl who falls in love with her too, thinking she is a boy. So far so good. But what will happen when her real identity comes out? And that is the drama. The brothers or local boys of the neighborhood of the girl who has fallen in love with Teena Brandon decide to take justice in their own hands. First they teach a lesson to that Teena and rape her ruthlessly. But this ends up in the sheriff's office and that is only the beginning of the end. Then the two boys decide to expedite real justice and they kill Teena along with another girl, and mother, that happens to be there at the wrong moment with her baby. The two culprits will be taken to court, tried, convicted and sentenced. But what can we do with such a tragedy? How can it be possible in our modern world that a gender crisis in the mind of a girl may cause such disorder among the people around her? How come the boys react so violently whereas the girls or even older women seem to be a lot more tolerant? What makes such a gender crisis so dramatic? There is no real answer and simple male bigotry is not enough to explain such events. Is malehood such a privilege, such an unsharable dignity that any woman who will desire to assume some of it for herself will turn the surrounding men into criminals? We are dealing here with sex or gender fetishism. But how come it is stronger among men than among women? Or would it be the same in reverse if a boy tried to assume a female identity? I am not sure. Men must feel particularly menaced by the gender wavering of a female who could thus penetrate the secret citadel of malehood without being a member of the brotherhood. Is it really an old story? Definitely not. It could happen again any time, and I would even say it does happen all the time here or there, openly but probably most of the time unknown of anyone because self-censored by the "culprit" of such wavering.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

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