Cinema: Boys Don’t Cry

Teena Brandon blew into town, stuck a sock in her crotch and said she was a guy: Brandon Teena. Who believed her? Everyone, especially the lonely girls dazzled by the notion of a sweet, sympathetic man. This true-life Nebraska fable–M. Butterfly mixed with In Cold Blood–proved that love is blind and hate is too. Boys Don’t Cry, a fiction film, underlines the awkwardness of cowgirl courtship as Brandon (Hilary Swank) and best friend Lana (Chloe Sevigny) probe for each other’s guilty secrets. But the movie lets down the material. It’s too cool: all attitude, no sizzle–horror under glass. This time, art can’t measure up to real life, love and death.

–By Richard Corliss