Boys Don't Cry

The last weeks of Brandon Teena, a trans man in Nebraska. He builds a new life in a new town, gets together with Lana Tisdel, and when his identity is exposed the violence begins. Brandon was murdered in 1993. It is Kimberly Peirce's first feature. Hilary Swank was paid 75 dollars a day for the part, 3,000 dollars in total. She won Best Actress at the 72nd Academy Awards for it, along with the Golden Globe. Chloë Sevigny was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Lana Tisdel; Peirce cast her after seeing her in The Last Days of Disco. The MPAA first gave it an NC-17 over the rape scene. An R followed after cuts to the sexual content; the brutality of the murder scene was kept. On a 2 million dollar budget it grossed 20.7 million domestically. It premiered at the New York Film Festival on 8 October 1999. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 91 percent, the consensus citing performances that burn in the memory. The real Lana Tisdel sued the producers, claiming she was portrayed as lazy, white trash and a skanky snake. She settled for an undisclosed sum and called the film the second murder of Brandon Teena. Who it is for: viewers who can take hard drama drawn from real events. Who it is not for: anyone who avoids violence, or anyone who would treat its accuracy as settled. One of the people inside the story objected to the account in public.