BOYS DON'T CRY

Year: 1999
USA: Fox Searchlight Pictures
UK: Twentieth Century Fox
Cast: Hilary Swank, Chloe Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III, Alison Folland, Alicia Goranson, Matt McGrath, Rob Campbell, Jeanetta Arnette, Clea Duvall, Jeffrey Scott Grice, Jennifer Harris, Robert Prentiss, Josh Ridgway
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Country: USA
USA: 114 mins
UK: 118 mins
USA Rated: R for violence including an intense brutal rape scene, sexuality, language and drug use
UK Certificate: 18 for coarse language, strong violence and strong sexual violence
USA Release Date: 8 October 1999
UK Release Date: 7 April 2000

Synopsis

From the middle of America emerged an extraordinary double life, a complicated love story and a crime that would shatter the heartland. In Falls City, Nebraska, Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank recently awarded an Oscar for Best Actress for her award winning performance here) was a newcomer with a future who had the small rural community enchanted. Women adored him and almost everyone who met this charismatic stranger was drawn to his charming innocence. But, Falls City's hottest date and truest friend had one secret: he wasn't the person people thought he was.

Back home in Lincoln just seventy-five miles away, Brandon Teena was a different person caught up in a personal crisis that had haunted him his entire life. Like many young people, he made costly mistakes and when he inadvertently trespassed between his new love Lana (Chlo? Sevigny) and her reckless friend John (Peter Sarsgaard), the mystery unraveled into violence.

BOYS DON'T CRY explores the contradictions of American youth and identity through the true life and death of Brandon Teena.