In the small Nebraska town of Falls City, on December 30, 1993, two men shot and killed Teena Brandon and two of her friends. The true story of the murder and the irrevocable events leading up to it, form the basis of "Boys Don't Cry," for which Hilary Swank just won an Academy Award.
Teena Brandon (Hilary Swank) was a girl who was terribly unhappy with being a girl. She knew it wasn't right, and she began changing her lifestyle accordingly. She cut her hair boyishly, wore loose-fitting flannel shirts, and became adept at "strapping and packing," flattening her breasts and stuffing socks down her pants. And she changed her name to Brandon Teena.
The movie starts out in Brandon's hometown of Lincoln, but soon moves to Falls City where he discovers new friends and a new girlfriend, Lana (Chloe Sevigney), whom he adores. Here he doesn't have to contend with people who know him, and, most importantly, here he is free to act out his pretense of maleness, his absolute enjoyment of it.
The crowd he finds himself in, and at first is blissfully unaware of, is pure white trash – homophobic, bigoted to the core, and mean. This becomes increasingly clear as the film moves "like a speeding, ongoing train, moving inevitably toward a crash," in the words of one reviewer.
Lana's friends, John (Peter Sarsgaard), and Tom (Brendan Sexton 111), discover Brandon's deception and it infuriates them. From here on in, the train picks up speed.
The movie sticks to the story, with only minor changes. A documentary was made of the story in 1998. James Berandinelli says "none of the alterations diminish the film's brutal impact."
He lauds Kimberly Pierce's direction and Swank's acting. He says the movie "is not intended for those who are unwilling to confront the visceral results of intolerance and hatred." His reference is to the "intense emotional savageness" of the rape and ultimate murder of Brandon and his friends.
Swank's characterization of Brandon, her total delight in fooling people, men as well as women, into her deception is at the heart of the movie, giving it heart and much more.
It is rated R for violence, rape, nudity, sex, profanity, mature themes.
It is playing at Market Square East.
