Boys Don't Cry (1999)

Released:  October 22nd, 1999

Rated:  R

Studio:  Fox Searchlight

Staring:  Hilary Swank, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III, Alicia Goranson, Jeanetta Arnette, Matt McGrath

Directed by:  Kimberly Peirce

Written by:  Kimberly Peirce, Andy Bienen 

Personal Bias Alert:  thinks Hilary Swank is amazing at a very particular kind of role, not familiar with the true story

8.3 of 10

            Everyone knows someone like Brandon.  That optimistic, bubbly personality radiates off them, and simply being in close proximity perks you up.  They dream and speak of the dream as if it’s something they’ll do tomorrow.  Even if you know they’ll never end up doing it, those dreams always seem a little closer when they’re around.  I don’t know if this is something writers Kimberly Peirce and Andy Bienen gave to Brandon or if their research on the real-life man made him out to be this way.  Either way, it serves as an excellent congealer for this rough, complex, and loving story.

            Set in Falls City, Nebraska, the film follows trans man Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) as he finds a new group of friends and falls in love with a local girl named Lana Tisdel (Chloë Sevigny).  The city itself is captured as one of those small towns with few things to do and even fewer opportunities to leave.  I have no clue if that’s how the town really was, but I do know that it was named for a small waterfall that no longer exists.  It’s not hard to imagine a town that’s lost its namesake as a pretty forlorn place.

            Brandon’s big personality provides a spark to the otherwise listless group of friends that includes Lana, Candace (Alicia Goranson), and Tom Nissen (Brendan Sexton III).  The story takes it time getting to know the group and its self-appointed leader, John (Peter Sarsgaard), a recklessly enjoyable imp.  What the film doesn’t waste its time doing is in setting up the inevitable conflict between John and Brandon.  In Lana’s introduction, she sings a boozy karaoke song, and a shot holds on Brandon and John sitting side-by-side, each blissfully enamored and entirely unaware of the other.  It’s an untenable situation that ends in a graphic, nasty way.  To be clear, the last 40 minutes of this film is a tough watch.

            The preceding time, though, is largely a love story, portraying Brandon and Lana’s budding romance.  Swank and Sevigny have great chemistry, and the flush of their romance is the most palpable aspect of the film.  What makes both of their performances great, and what won Swank her first Oscar, is that they first and foremost portrayed their characters.  They didn’t get distracted by the issues the film brings up, but instead focus on what makes their characters tick, what makes them upset, and what ultimately makes them fall in love.  Their performances are equaled by Sarsgaard, who unfolds John’s personality in an immaculately even way.  He’s tragic in and of himself, unable to handle losing the family he has built in his head.

            Despite a wonderfully told story, a few small missteps hold it back from being a masterpiece.  Some technical problems, like an awkward lighting change after a character is shown turning off a lamp, jolts you out of the film.  The music is often too prominent, and the cinematography takes some risks, occasionally stumbling on its more ambitious attempts.  The film thrives on its slowing building story, which makes these jolts all the more detrimental.

            It would have been easy to make this film about intolerance, to paint the locals as ignorant hillbillies, and send the audience home with a message about acceptance, but “Boys Don’t Cry” does something much richer.  It tells a timeless story of ill-fated lovers, and in doing so makes you see them how they see themselves, as a boy and a girl, destined to be separated. 

            Other Notes:

Ø  I criticized the music, but Nina Persson and Nathan Larson’s version of “The Bluest Eyes in Texas” is perfect.  I can’t hear that song without thinking about this film.

Ø  The line where the sparks fly:  “Someone walked me home last night.  I think it was you.”

Ø  The line that reassured me they were going to land the ending:  “There was never any Memphis, was there?”

American Psycho (2000)

2 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  fine with extreme violence, fine with allegorical storytelling, disliked “Fight Club”

            I must admit up front that I went into “American Psycho” with very low expectations.  What I knew of it reminded me very much of “Fight Club,” a movie I think succumbs to its violent trappings and fails to get it’s metaphor across.  That remains true for “American Psycho,” but what I didn’t suspect was how bad the central metaphor would be and how irritated I would be by the finished product.

            “American Psycho” follows New York banker Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a wealthy man with a secret night life.  He attends dinners at fancy restaurants, wears expensive suits, and maintains an impeccable physique not because he derives any pleasure from these activities, but because it flaunts his elite social status.  While mostly indifferent to other people, their occasional challenges to his perceived superiority cause him to go into fits of rage and homicide.  He tries to keep this hidden, killing at night and in controlled situations, but as the feelings build he begins to take more and more risks.

            The whole movie, like the book it is based on, is an allegory for the consumerism that runs rampant in our culture.  Everything in it is representative of the theme, and realism is thrown out the window.  The characters are shallow, self-obsessed people that we’re supposed to hate.  The narration is straightforward and preachy.  The sets are decadent and inhospitable (I can’t imagine anyone actually living in those apartments).  Everything hinges on the allegory working, but the ideas behind it are simply too banal to warrant the nastiness it puts on the screen.

            Rampant consumerism had been discussed for decades preceding the books release in 1991.  The society in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel “Brave New World” revolved around it.  The characters in Evelyn Waugh’s 1930 novel “Vile Bodies” are consumed by status seeking.  Emile Henry Gauvreau, who died in 1956, once said “I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don't want, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like.”  That quote is an almost perfect description of the characters in this film/book, and it was delivered before the author was even born.

            Granted, a film or book doesn’t have to make a novel point.  It does, however, become a problem when it’s the selling point of the entire story.   When you’ve gone out of your way to make everything in the film as grating as it is in “American Psycho,” that central metaphor has to carry the audience’s interest.  Because that metaphor is so poor, anyone familiar with this theme will find little to be interested in.

            The nail in the coffin (or in the back of the head) is the film’s ending.  This is a massive SPOILER ALERT, because I’m about to reveal in detail the ending.  Throughout the film, there are suggestions that Bateman might not be sound of mind.  By the end, he seems to have a full mental breakdown.  He causes a police car to explode just by shooting it with a handgun, and an ATM machine tells him to feed it a cat.  Even in the reality of this film, neither of those things could happen.  It clearly points to Bateman’s unstable mental state, and although the filmmakers make it clear that he did kill all those people, it makes it feel like they pulled a punch.  The horrific things Bateman does is supposed to represent the horrible things people are capable of doing when they get blinded by their desire to acquire things.  Adding the idea that Bateman is crazy, even if it was the consumerist culture that drove him crazy, still transfers some of the guilt to his disjointed mind and lessens the metaphor.

            With such a weak idea behind it, the extreme nature in which the metaphor is told feels unearned.  The violence, sex, and dark humor feels like a mask, a desperate attempt to make a simple idea feel like more than it is.  With no other redeeming qualities, the film actually angered me, and not in the way that it wanted.

            Other Notes:

Ø  You can make an interesting story about a despicable character while still getting across a unique worldview.  Read Albert Camus’s “The Stranger.”  No punches pulled there.

Ø  I recognize that the actors and crew did what was asked of them.  This mess isn’t their fault.

Ø  Maybe I just don’t like transgressive fiction.

Ø  Are yuppies the ‘80s version of hipsters?