There was a scene in this film that could strike humanity the most: in the bathroom scene where Brandon Teena was stripped naked, forced to prove what she really was. This scene alone made a distinct impression on us that questions about ourselves shouldn't be what we are but instead, who we are, thus, making Boys Don't Cry a very good film. A film with a resonance to the world. Brandon Teena wasn't presented as a lesbian. For other people's eyes, she might assemble herself as a red-blooded lesbian, but for other with intelligence, she's a woman who thinks himself as a man out of the desperation of loneliness and at the brink of frustrations. She dresses like a normal guy, gets boyish haircut, wraps cloth around her breats to make it look like man-chest and stuff a sock in front of her briefs to pull out an ordinary man's bulge. Yet the psyche of it all wasn't a question really of whether she's a lesbian or a girl or a guy; it's all about who she is and what she believes about, that's why we respect her and all the more respectable than people who try to hide within their selves and never coming out of who they really are. Brandon has more courage than most people nowadays with identity crisis, and it takes more spunk and guts to be open in the world full of malice and scrutiny.
Based on a true story, it tells about Brandon Teena (actually Teena Brandon) who escapes his hometown and to Falls City where he was welcomed more so than the place where he came from. People fell for his uncommon boyish charm, and he had dated a girl named Lana. Of course, Brandon was nice and this girl, who had never dated a guy before, also fell for his warm and gentle manner. Even though Brandon was really a girl, he/she knew how to treat a woman, making her more like a woman herself. And when there came a point when Bradon tells Lana that he's really a she, this point eventually tells us that Lana already knows yet at the time doesn't need to know - because what she really need to know was that she fell in love with a person that has a heart, no matter who that person was.
Brandon Teena's life, although short-lived, was a fully-lived life. As John and Tom, Lana's drunkard home buddies, discovered about Brandon's sexuality, they seized her in bathroom and stripped her naked, letting her prove about her own confusions. Yet she was a woman, and John and Tom had taken advantage of her own vulnerability and raped her, and while Brandon escaped and tells the authorities, she was killed to silence her.
Boys Don't Cry is both a social study, as well as a love story. It would appear as a sexuality study but the director Kimberly Pierce stunningly subsides sexuality inside a ingenius shell portrait of passion, love, frustrations and the courage and hope to stay true to ourselves. Somehow, it felt like Romeo & Juliet, where both Lana and Brandon were forced to stay hidden in a society of doubt. It also felt like an early Brokeback Mountain, also a tragic rendition of love and loss.
All hail to Hilary Swank for having the deepest sincerity and perseverance in portraying Brandon Teena, a mischevious yet endearing painting on this character. No wonder she grabbed that Oscar Best Actress statuette back in 1999. And also, Chloe Sevigny was such a surprise. The performances in this film was as riveting and powerful as it could be.
Rating: A
