'Boys Don't Cry' Boasts Stellar Acting

The story of Brandon Teena is a wrenching wakeup call to anyone who believes that our country has replaced prejudice with tolerance.

Brandon Teena was born Teena Brandon, but as she reaches her teens, she believes that she had been born in the wrong body. So she does something about it. She chops off her hair, dresses like a man and sticks a sock down her pants to look the role that she feels is her true calling.

Always just slightly on the wrong side of the law, Teena takes off from Lincoln, Neb., and lands in Falls City, where she finds a great girl and good friends -? until they discover that he is a she.

The deception enrages the small-town roughs with whom she had been hanging, and ignites a brutal series of events -- which lead to her murder.

Hilary Swank deserves all the kudos she has received for this role. From the very beginning, you are as convinced, as she is, that Teena is a boy. The mannerisms, the slow drawl, the tenderness and passion she expresses with her girlfriend, played by Chloe Sevigny, all draw you into Teena's fragile world.

The main thing that is missing in "Boys Don't Cry" was provided by a documentary on Teena earlier in 1999 called "The Brandon Teena Story." The documentary goes into more detail about Teena's earlier years and her bouts with the law and her family. The lack of knowledge of how she got from there to here makes it harder to empathize with the movie's central character.

But anything the screenplay lacks is more than made up for by Swank's and Sevigny's ferocious performances. In fact, Swank's performance is so dead-on that she could have a hard time convincing filmmakers that she can play a girl.

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• "Boys Don't Cry", official Web site.
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