A true story about finding the courage to be yourself.

Genre: Drama
Role: Lana Tisdel
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Co-Stars: Hilary Swank, Peter Saarsgaard, Matt McGrath, Rob Campbell, Brendan Sexton III, Alicia Goranson, Alison Folland
Release Date: U.S., October 8 1999 (theatrical; limited)
MPAA Motion Picture Rating: R

• Overview
• Memorable Lana Quotations
• Boys Don’t Cry Movie Trivia
• Critical Reception
• Boys Don’t Cry Online

More photos in our Boys Don’t Cry gallery!

Brandon Teena (Swank) is the popular new guy in a tiny Nebraska town. He hangs out with the guys, drinking, cussing, and bumper surfing, and charms the young women, who’ve never met a more sensitive and considerate guy. Life is good for Brandon, now that he’s one of the guys and dating hometown beauty Lana. However, he’s deliberately failed to mention one important detail. It’s not that he’s wanted in another town for GTA and other assorted crimes, but that Brandon Teena was actually born Teena Brandon, a woman. When his best friends at last find out the truth, Brandon’s life is ripped apart once and for all.

Chloë Sevigny portrays Lana Tisdel, Brandon’s girlfriend with a dysfunctional family, and one of the few people in Brandon’s life to accept him for who he is.

“Well, you’d be cranky too, Mister I’m going to Graceland, Memphis Tennessee.”

“You don’t have to be sober to be able to weigh spinach.”

“I hate my life.”

“Shut up, that’s your business. I don’t care if you are half monkey or half ape, I’m gettin’ you out of here!”

• Boys Don’t Cry is based on the real life story of the transgender man Brandon Teena, who was raped and murdered by two male acquaintances in December 1993, at just 21 years of age.

• To prepare for the role of Brandon Teena, Hilary Swank lived as a man for more than a month, and would wrap her chest in tension bandages and put socks down the front of her pants much in the same way Brandon Teena did. The act was so convincing that her neighbors actually believed that the “young man” coming and going from Swank’s home was a visiting brother of hers.

• The film’s working title was Take It Like a Man.

• Hilary Swank won the lead role of Brandon after hundreds of other actresses had been considered and rejected over the course of three years. She told director Kimberly Peirce that, like her character, she was also 21 and came from Lincoln, Nebraska. While that was not true, when Pierce later confronted her about lying, Swank would respond, “But that’s what Brandon would do.”

• Chloë Sevigny alongside actresses Alicia Goranson and Alison Folland all originally auditioned for the role of Brandon Teena.

• Prior to the film’s release, the real Lana Tisdel sued the producers for invasion of privacy and the unauthorized use of her name and likeness. According to Tisdel’s claims, the film portrayed her as “lazy, white trash and a skanky snake” and falsely depicted that she continued her relationship with Brandon after she discovered he was anatomically female. The case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

• Due to its graphic rape and sex scenes, Boys Don’t Cry was initially assigned the dreaded NC-17 rating by the MPAA. To avoid the undesired rating, the material was heavily edited for the U.S. release, and the edited cut was ultimately rated R for “violence including an intense brutal rape scene, nudity, sexual content, language and drug use”.

• Hilary Swank received criticism from the family of Brandon Teena for her repeated use of the male-gendered pronoun ‘he’ in her Oscar acceptance speech. Brandon’s mother argued that her son’s transgenderism was a defense mechanism that was developed in response to childhood sexual abuse, rather than being an expression of his gendered sense of self: “She pretended she was a man so no other man could touch her.” Swank later apologized, but many transgender activists asserted that she was correct in referring to Brandon as a man, as this was the gender in which he preferred to live and act.

Boys Don’t Cry received a limited theatrical release in the States in October 1999 after a string of successful U.S. and international film festival screenings, following which the film was released theatrically worldwide over the course of the winter and spring. Despite the many controversies sparked by the film, critical reviews on the film have been almost overwhelmingly positive, and the film has received much critical acclaim as well as prestigeous recognition both nationally and internationally, including a Golden Globe and Oscar for star Hilary Swank and -nominations for co-star Chloë Sevigny.

• Rating > Internet Movie Database: 7.6/10 (35,800 user votes counted)
• Rating > MetaCritic: 86/100 metascore, “Universal acclaim” (professional)
• Rating > Rotten Tomatoes: 89% positive reviews, “Fresh” (professional)

Extracts from professional movie reviews:

“Hilary Swank should be a lock for an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her subtle, strong, yet vulnerable portrayal of Brandon Teena (née Teena Brandon), the true-life female who attempted to pass herself off as male in a small Nebraska town, where she ended up falling for another lost soul (Chloë Sevigny, every bit as good as Swank). Brandon’s secret eventually comes out, but the shock is not in the (inevitable) tragic ending, but the devastating emotional effect director-co-scripter (with Andy Bienen) Kimberly Peirce is able to achieve through mere nuance. Swank and Sevigny are both talented, effortlessly likable performers, but it isn’t until the close that one realizes just how deeply one has grown to care for the vivid, sympathetic human beings–as opposed to mere characters–they have brought to life.”
– Michael Dequina, Mr. Brown’s Movies

“Upping the ante is Brandon’s love-at-first-sight crush on Lana (played with haunting immediacy by the versatile Chloe Sevigny), a teenager with a sick-of-it-all attitude who is romantically connected to John but whom Brandon immediately covets. Swank and director Pierce are especially good at creating empathy for Brandon, even when he acts with such utter foolishness he doesn’t deserve it, and that concern for character, that refusal to typecast, refreshingly extends to John and Tom, who turn out to be an increasing unstable and violent pair of ex-cons. [...] One thing Boys Don’t Cry doesn’t do is soft-pedal the painful and horrifying aspects of Brendan’s story; we share his lacerating journey right to its dark end. Unlike scenarios that play at disturbance, this film, especially in its graphic and devastating rape scene, is genuinely hard to take.”
– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“The supporting actors are more than capable. Chloë Sevigny (The Last Days of Disco) plays Lana, an affection-starved young woman with such a low sense of self-esteem that she deludes herself into believing that Brandon is actually a man, even after a sexual encounter. Sevigny’s performance is more conventional than Swank’s, but no less effective. She provides the counterbalance to the tide of hatred that drowns the last act of the film.”
– James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Personal Thoughts

Sandra: Personally, I have to say I would be lying if I said I didn’t have certain reservations about this film. Having read all the praise for it, I was expecting something of a mind-blowing eye-opener, but while Brandon Teena’s life and fate — of which I knew nothing in beforehand — were very intriguing to me, I don’t feel like I was left with much to contemplate over by the end of the film, despite its impressive performances, and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. But at the same time I have to give credit where it’s due — the filmmakers deal with a very delicate issue admirably maturely, boldly and realistically throughout the film, and without sugarcoating it for the audience, which in today’s film industry is a feat all by itself. And while I didn’t feel like I was left with a lot of food for thought at the end of the film, I also want to point out I still enjoyed it, at least to the extent one can “enjoy” such a tragic (if also beautiful) film.

Hilary Swank and Chloë Sevigny have also been deservedly lifted up as the film’s best performers. Chloë’s portrayal of Lana is both strong, genuine and compelling, and well holds her own against Swank’s equally brilliant performance; I don’t think a lesser actor could’ve even competed with such a central and tragic character as Swank’s Brandon. I was therefore surprised to hear Chloë later say that portraying Lana didn’t really garner her any new project offers. Surely if any film speaks loudly for Chloë’s skills as an actress, it’s Boys Don’t Cry.

Below are some Boys Don’t Cry-related links that may be of interest to you.

• Boys Don’t Cry official site
• Boys Don’t Cry TFL-approved fanlisting
• Boys Don’t Cry TFL-approved Lana Tisdel character fanlisting
• Boys Don’t Cry on IMDb.com
• Boys Don’t Cry on RottenTomatoes.com
• Boys Don’t Cry on Wikipedia.org

• Kimberly Peirce on IMDb.com
• Kimberly Peirce on Wikipedia.org