Boys Don't Cry (1999) - Swank and co-stars stand out in Peirce's gritty, empathetic true-crime debut

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+ Best Rainbow Movie of the Year + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year: Hilary Swank + Best True-Crime Movie of the Year  

 

A graphically manipulated figure of the protagonist Brandon Teena against a rust-colored road makes up this deliberately rough and unpolished-looking poster for Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry

Brandon Teena is a female-to-male transgender, who passes off as a handsome young guy, but does so in just about the worst kind of white trash environment imaginable.

 

Boys Don't Cry is written by Andy Bienen (Yellow Rose (2019)) and debuting co-writer/director Kimberly Peirce (Carrie (2013)). It is based on the real life and death of Brandon Teena of Falls City, Nebraska.

Hilary Swank (Insomnia (2002)) is fearless, and Chloë Sevigny (Hit & Miss (2012, miniseries)) falls head over heels - credibly - in love with Swank's Brandon. Peter Sarsgaard (Empire (2002)) is frighteningly believable as the blunted douche heavy of the story. The film doesn't find aesthetic or other devices to elevate it from its primitive environment, which makes it somewhat strenuous to sit through, as it builds up to its harshly realistic and fairly sickening third act.

Boys Don't Cry is like a heartbreaking scream heard in the night. It is definitely a film with its heart in the right place. 

 

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 Top 10: Best gay-themed titles

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 2 mil. $

Box office: 20.7 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 10.35 times its cost)

[Boys Don't Cry premiered 2 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 118 minutes. Swank lied herself one year younger to get the part and immersed herself fully into the part despite getting only 3k $ for the performance in total. Shooting took place from October - November 1998 in Texas, including Austin and Dallas. The film was cut in North America to avoid an NC-17 rating and obtain the R rating it was released with. It opened #43 to a 73k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #16 and in 365 theaters, grossing 11.5 mil. $ (55.6 % of the total gross). The real-life Lana Tisdel (Sevigny's character) met with Swank to inform her work prior to filming but attacked the film upon release and sued the filmmakers, a matter that was solved out of court for an undisclosed sum. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars, winning Best Actress for Swank, and losing Supporting Actress (Sevigny) to Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted. It was also nominated for a BAFTA, won 2/5 Independent Spirit award nominations, 1/2 Golden Globe nominations, 3 National Board of Review awards and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Peirce returned with The L Word (2006, TV-series) and theatrically with Stop-Loss (2008). Swank returned in The Audition (2000, short) and theatrically in The Gift (2000); Sevigny in Julien Donkey-Boy (1999); and Sarsgaard in The Cell (2000). Boys Don't Cry is certified fresh at 89 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Boys Don't Cry?

Girl (2018) - Debuting Polster impresses in insightful trans drama

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Star Victor Polster's angelic visage adorns this turquoise back-colored poster for Lukas Dhont's Girl

Lara is 16 years old, studies ballet and is transgender. She is fighting to cover up her male characteristics and struggling with the waiting period up to the genital operation that she looks forward to.

Girl is written by Angelo Tijssens (Iceland/Ijsland (2010, short)) and directed by debuting Lukas Dhont (Headlong/Corps Perdu (2012, short)).

It is an impressively bold and tender performance from debuting Victor Polster that drives Girl, which dwells on him for every moment of its running time. Some of its many shots, particularly of the ballet studies, become a bit monotonous.

Lara gets support from her father and surroundings in general, - SPOILER the film only has a single scene of group pressure, a very mild form of abuse, - and for this reason it is hard to comprehend what exactly drives Lara to genital mutilation in the film's end, - which can also ruin the opportunities for a successful gender switch operation. Several scenes of the physical issues of the trans affliction, - especially the explanation of the operation, - are very unpleasant to witness. But Girl is certainly enlightening.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 1.5 mil. €, approximately 1.81 mil. $

Box office: 4.1 mil. $

= Minor flop (returned its cost 2.26 times)

[Girl premiered 12 May (Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard section) and runs 106 minutes. Dhont and Tijssens found inspiration and insight for the screenplay from Nora Monsecour, whose personal story is the basis for it. Shooting took place from August - September 2017 in Belgium, including Brussels. Polster, 14 years old at the time, got consent from his parents to do the film's nude scenes. The film was not released theatrically in North America. Its 3 biggest markets were France with 2.6 mil. $ (63.4 % of the total gross), the Netherlands with 1.2 mil. $ (29.3 %) and Greece with 72k $ (1.8 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, won 5 prizes in Cannes, was nominated for a César award, won 1/4 European Film award nominations, 4/9 Magritte award nominations (Belgium's Oscar), and it was also Belgium's official Oscar entry of the year. Dhont has since only made Our Nature (2021, short). Polster is returning in Les Rivières Pourpres (2021, TV-series). Girl is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Girl?

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) - Mitchell's big rock musical blow-out

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John Cameron Mitchell's platinum blonde title character sings her heart out on this poster for his Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hansie, an East-German boy, grows up to become a beautiful female rock singer in the West, who tours with her band, all the while the bitter breakdown of her relationship with young rock phenomenon Tommy pains and affects everything.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is written and directed by great Texan filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole (2010)), whose debut it is. It is based on Mitchell and Stephen Trask's (The Savages (2007, score)) same-titled 1998 musical.
It is a fantastically distinctive and memorable film with some delightful songs, hair, makeup and costumes. - And an intense Mitchell in his own title role. Michael Pitt (Dawson's Creek (1999-00)) is also a star in the making as Tommy.
What can be criticized about this very stylishly assertive film, - which in fact can feel somewhat like watching a 90-minute, great music video, - is that it elevates Hedwig's narcissism and makes it its own, refusing to take interest in anything besides her limited, self-centered and overly dramatic world. This especially hurts the film's inauspicious ending.

Related posts:

 

John Cameron Mitchell: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Rabbit Hole (2010) - Kidman and Eckhart shine in Mitchell's excellent drama 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 3.6 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.6 times its cost)
[Hedwig and the Angry Inch premiered 19 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 92 minutes. Shooting took place in Ontario, including Toronto, from July - August 2000. Most of the lead vocals were recorded live. Pitt reportedly ate onion and garlic prior to his prolonged kissing scene with Mitchell out of discomfort. The film opened #28 to a 156k $ first weekend in 9 theaters in North America, were it peaked at #23 and in 101 theaters (different weeks), grossing 3 mil. $ (83.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were South Korea with 286k $ (7.9 %) and France with 94k $ (2.6 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival, was nominated for 5 Independent Spirit awards, won a National Board of Review award, 2 awards at Sundance and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Mitchell returned with Shortbus (2006) as a filmmaker and as an actor in Girls (2013-14)). Hedwig and the Angry Inch is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hedwig and the Angry Inch?

Seed of Chucky (2004) - Mancini's gender-fluid horror-comedy is a weird trip

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An extreme eye closeup, - with semen cell retina details, - and a hilariously bent tagline distinguish this game poster for Don Mancini's Seed of Chucky

Deceased killer dolls Chucky & Tiffany have a gender-fluid son/daughter, who is searching for its parents - in Hollywood.

Seed of Chucky is written and directed by Don Mancini (Child's Play (1988, screenplay)), whose directing debut it is. It is the 5th film in the Child's Play/Chucky franchise.
It is a far out and really strange sequel, which is filthy enough to have been made by John Waters (Mangus! (2011)) himself, who actually has a funny role in it.
Jennifer Tilly (The Haunted Mansion (2003)) is funny in the film in a performance packed with self-irony.
Seed of Chucky's story is obscure and surprisingly difficult to really understand. In its intro sequence Chucky's sperm cells are seen entering a doll's vagina. - Weird!

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 12 mil. $
Box office: 24.8 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.06 times its cost)
[Seed of Chucky was released 12 November (USA) and runs 86 minutes. Universal Pictures, the studio behind the previous 3 films, rejected the script as "too gay." Focus Features jumped in instead. Quentin Tarantino passed on a role as himself. Shooting took place in Los Angeles, California and in Bucharest, Romania from November 2003 - March 2004. The film opened #4, behind holdover hit The Incredibles and fellow new releases The Polar Express and After the Sunset, to an 8.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and grossed 17 mil. $ (68.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 1.9 mil. $ (7.7 %) and Mexico with 1.1 mil. $ (4.4 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Mancini returned with Curse of Chucky (2013, video), the next in the franchise, which went on with Cult of Chucky (2017, video, also by Mancini), before it was rebooted to cinemas with Child's Play (2019) and a coming TV-series. Brad Dourif (Pulse (2006)) returned in The Devil's Due at Midnight (2004, short), Chucky's Family Vacation (2004, short) and theatrically in Drop Dead Sexy (2005); Tilly in Chucky's Family Vacation, Li'l Pimp (2005, video) and theatrically in The Civilization of Maxwell Bright (2005). Seed of Chucky is rotten at 33 % with a 4.46/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Seed of Chucky?

A Soap/En Soap (2006) - P. Christensen's great melodrama debut

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+ Best Copenhagen Movie of the Year + Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best Melodrama of the Year

The delicious, pink poster for Penille Fischer Christensen's A Soap

QUICK REVIEW:

In a block in Nordvest, Copenhagen, Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm (Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012))) moves into a flat atop Veronica (David Dencik (Daisy Diamond (2007))), a pre-op transgender person, and the two gradually get closer and start to attract each other.

A Soap, the feature debut of great Danish co-writer-director Pernille Fischer Christensen (Someone You Love/En Du Elsker (2014)), is a really good, deeply melancholic film. It seeks boundaries and at times may make you uncomfortable. By demonstratively relegating a melodrama to us, using narration, the film transcends its earthbound base. A Soap, in a sense, shows us that life is a bagatelle, - a soap.
Christensen co-wrote with Kim Fupz Aakeson (In Order of Disappearence/Kraftidioten (2014)).

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2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

David Dencik in Pernille Fischer Christensen's A Soap

 In lieu of a trailer for the film, which isn't on Youtube currently, here's a trailer for a more recent Fischer film, A Family/En Familie (2010) (which is far from the quality of A Soap) with English subtitles

Cost: 1.5 mil. $ 
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty (but looks like a huge flop)
[A Soap was released April 7 (Denmark) and runs 104 minutes. At the Berlin Film Festival, the film won the Grand Jury Silver Bear Award and the Best First Feature Film Award. At the Danish Bodil awards, the film won the Best Danish Film of the Year award as well as the Best Actress Award for Dyrholm, her third up to that point. 29,060 paid admission (accounting for approximately 0.3 mil. $) to A Soap in its native Denmark, which is so few that it should likely count as a huge flop theatrically. The international figures available, from the US (where it played in 2 theaters for 8 weeks, making 4k $), Brazil, Mexico and Portugal, add 145k $ to the number, still firmly setting the film in the huge flop category. 1,649 Rotten Tomatoes users have given A Soap an average 3.6/5 rating.]

What do you think of A Soap?

The Danish Girl (2015) - Another reverberant historical drama from Hooper

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+ Best Drama of the Year

Leads Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne adorn the beautiful poster for Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl

Gerda and Einar are a married couple of painters in Copenhagen in the 1920s. Their relationship is put under a strain, when they discover that Einar has got a female personality hidden inside of him, who wants to come out.

Danish Girl presents the true story of one of the first sex-change operations in the world, (one German man-to-woman surgery was reportedly performed successfully before it.) The story is very much told through the prism of the loving relationship of a husband and wife who are determined to find a way forward together. Oscar-nominated Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything (2014)) and Oscar-nominated Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair/En Kongelig Affære (2012)) are a major asset for this: Redmayne has an innocence to him and exudes a rich internal life, and Vikander impresses just as much and gives an emotionally affecting performance as a loyal and strong wife and artist.
Danish Girl also benefits from Ben Whishaw (Lilting (2014)) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone (2012)), the latter looking absolutely stunning as an old friend of Einar. The film's aesthetics are thoroughly pleasing throughout, with fine photography by Danny Cohen (Room (2015)), also taking great delight in its locations of Copenhagen, Paris and Dresden, and some magnificent costumes by Oscar-nominated Paco Delgado (Les Misérables (2012)). London-born master filmmaker Tom Hooper (The King's Speech (2010)) has exactly the sensitivity to command the transgressive material into a film that makes the unnerving experience of being trapped in the 'wrong' gender, - and of being married to that person, - into something that can be understood and felt by a wider circle of people than is probably usually the case. One can only shudder to think what the saccharine Swede Lasse Hallström (Chocolat (2000)), who was once attached to direct Danish Girl, would have turned out.
Lucinda Coxon (Wild Target (2010)) wrote the screenplay based on David Ebershoff's (The 19th Wife (2009)) 2000 novel of the same name.

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Tom Hooper: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
The King's Speech (2010) - Hooper's soaring, royal masterpiece about overcoming human frailty

Matthias Schoenaerts looks stunning as Hans in Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl

Alicia Vikander is riveting in Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl

Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl

Watch the strong trailer for the film here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 64.2 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Danish Girl premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and runs 119 minutes. Coxon had worked with the script since 2004, and Tomas Alfredson was also earlier attached to direct, but finding the actors and financing proved more difficult. Filming lasted from February - April 2015 in Copenhagen, London, Brussels and Germany. The film's differences from the real life stories of Einar/Lili and Gerda and the sensitive content has inspired debate. One noticeable falsification, for Danes especially, is that Einar's native Vejle, Jutland in Denmark has mountains! (There are no mountains in Denmark.) - However this serves a specific purpose in the film and is therefore totally justified. The film has been banned for 'moral depravity' in at least 6 hellish countries in the world: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. The film's first, limited opening in the US, in four theaters in LA and NY, was the 6th best per cinema opening average for 2015. The movie has grossed 10.8 mil. $ (24.4 % of the total gross) in North America. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are the UK with 10.4 mil. $ (23.2 %) and Spain with 4.9 mil. $ (10.9 %). - The film has also done relatively well in Denmark with a 0.9 mil. $ (2 %) gross there. The Danish Girl is fresh at 70 % with a 6.6 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]


What do you think of The Danish Girl?