Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Directed by Kimberly Peirce
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
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What critics compared Boys Don't Cry to
The tactic of mixing up disparate elements is central to Dope: a comedy-thriller in the showy tradition of Quentin Tarantino, where any given dialogue exchange might name-drop, say, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson or Hilary Swank's performance in Boys Don't Cry.
Killer Films, which nursed Kill Your Darlings through its long development, also deserves credit for supporting Krokidas with its own expertise in movies based on real-life incidents involving queerness and murder, Kimberly Peirce ’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Tom Kalin’s Swoon (1992) being notable examples.
In both cases, the movies are by directors doing the unexpected, Robert ("Legally Blonde") Luketic breaking away from his romantic comedy crutch with "21" and Kimberly Peirce making the war drama "Stop-Loss" after a painfully long gap since her debut, "Boys Don't Cry."
Ms. Swank may never again find a role as challenging as Boys Don't Cry, but at least she recently started her own production company.
Swank might have been so touching in Boys Don't Cry (1999) because she was playing the part of an overactor instead of merely overacting.
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Braff has cast those roles well, enlisting Sarsgaard -- who has delivered terrific performances in "Boys Don't Cry" and "Shattered Glass" -- as a red-eyed stoner and grave robber who somehow manages to become the hero of the story.
Those wanting to see similar subject matter portrayed with real passion and believability should rent "Boys Don't Cry," for which Hilary Swank won her first Oscar.
Well-known LGBTQ stories like Brokeback Mountain, Philadelphia, Boys Don’t Cry, and The Normal Heart are important because they capture and never let us forget that survival for LGBTQ people — in a world that for large swaths of history has tried to make them disappear — is equal parts defiance, love, and struggle.
Hilary Swank, who has been languishing in tepid roles in films like "Insomnia" and "The Core" since winning an Oscar for "Boys Don't Cry," returns to her true level of expertise as Maggie, a woman whose toughness and resilience are matched by her inner gentility.
Hilary Swank, who just a film or so ago (The Core) was looking like she'd never again achieve the stunning effectiveness of Boys Don't Cry, is here subtle and moving.
Hilary Swank, too, is doing what she does better than anyone, narrow though it may be: playing, as she did in Boys Don't Cry, a poor, rural girl who fulfills her desire for self-determination by acting like a boy.
Hilary Swank seemed to get lost after her Oscar win for Boys Don’t Cry but here she proves that her success was no fluke.
And Swank, beefed up almost beyond recognition since her role in Boys Don’t Cry, muscles her way toward her second Best Actress Oscar.
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As in movies like "Boys Don't Cry" or "The Accused," "Elephant" exists in an atmosphere of queasy anticipation of the atrocity you know is coming at the end.