Boys Don't Cry film review

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BOY'S DON'T CRY

Twenty-one-year old Brandon Teena was murdered in 1993 in a farmhouse in southeast Nebraska by two ex-cons - John Lotter and Thomas Nissen. He had been shot several times at close range and left for dead, along with a young woman who happened to be in the homestead with him.

His brutal murder shocked the local community of Falls City, for whom Brandon had been one of their favourite sons, a charmer without an enemy in the world, who was never short of female company nor drinking buddies.

However, the people of Falls City soon learned that they didn't know Brandon very well at all. The gregarious young man whom everyone knew and adored, not least his loyal girlfriend Lana Tisdel, was a charlatan. False history, false name - everything - a sham. And most surprising of all, he wasn't really a man, but an emotionally-crippled young woman called Teena Brandon, who had managed to pass herself off as the imaginary Brandon for years.

Kimberly Peirce's film pieces together the final weeks of Brandon's life, from his arrival in Falls City through to his brutal slaying. Using interviews with the people who knew him as well as court transcripts and police reports (and a smattering of guesswork), Peirce has cut through the rumours and mythology surrounding Brandon's life, uncovering a doomed love affair and an extraordinary story of transformation which almost defies belief.

Boys Don't Cry is an emotionally overwhelming and, at times, deeply upsetting portrait of doomed youth. The rape and the scene in Lana's bathroom where Brandon is stripped bare by John and Thomas and exposed as a woman, are some of the most distressing images captured on film in recent memory. Peirce's intentionally uncluttered directorial style, capturing these searing and horrific events in single static takes, only accentuates Brandon's terror and the tangible air of impending violence.

From the moment Oscar-winner Hilary Swank appears on screen, there is no question that she is Brandon: not just in her appearance (the Adam's apple, the clothes and haircut), but also in her mannerisms and demeanour.

It's an astonishing, virtuoso performance from the relative newcomer, which is spellbinding to observe, tapping into the pain and suffering of a lonely young (wo)man searching for her place in the world.