Boys Don't Cry The movie is about a girl named Brandon who embodies the ongoing dilemma of masculine identity. You see Brandon riding in the back of a pickup truck trying to act like a boy, you already know that 18-year-old Brandon's efforts to act like a boy are complicated by the fact that he is a girl, born Teena Brandon. The movie is based on a true story, the movie opens with Teena (Hilary …showed first 75 words of 644 total…

…showed last 75 words of 644 total…a trip to the sheriff's office. And so another truth comes out. Brandon must confess his crime - that he is a she - at the same time that he narrates the rape for the cops. John and Tom are undone, and they can only destroy the person who represents their loss of self-assurance, their questions about themselves. The tragedy is tremendous. But the film never makes it seem freaky or startling, or even deviant.