Why I love Chloe Sevigny’s per­for­mance in Boys Don’t Cry

We all remem­ber Hilary Swank’s leg­endary per­for­mance as Bran­don Teena in Boys Don’t Cry. It was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary role as it was one of the ear­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tions of a trans­gen­der char­ac­ter in Hol­ly­wood. Her com­mit­ment to the part was absolute, and it won her the Best Actress Oscar in 2000. When a film focus­es so much on the expe­ri­ences of a sin­gle per­son, it is easy for oth­er char­ac­ters to fade into the back­ground, end­ing up lost some­where in the mem­o­ry of cinema’s immense his­to­ry. For me, Chloe Sevigny’s sup­port­ing turn as Lana Tis­del is one that stands the test of time, as a true glim­mer of light and kind­ness in what is an oth­er­wise dev­as­tat­ing film.

I remem­ber watch­ing Lar­ry Clarke’s Kids as a teenag­er, in which Sevi­gny plays Jen­nie, a young girl who dis­cov­ers she is HIV pos­i­tive. I didn’t know who she was then, but I remem­ber notic­ing her qui­et con­fi­dence, and the effort­less­ly cool way she car­ried off her short hair­cut, t‑shirt and jeans. It wasn’t until a few years lat­er that I watched David Fincher’s Zodi­ac, in which Sevi­gny plays Jake Gyllenhaal’s girl­friend. Her uncon­ven­tion­al beau­ty struck me again, and the nat­ur­al way she looked and act­ed was some­thing I had rarely seen in films before.

Kids led to more film roles and a suc­cess­ful mod­el­ling career, and her indi­vid­ual style had her dubbed as ​“the coolest girl in the world”. Every­one thought she looked great, but it wasn’t until Boys Don’t Cry that peo­ple began to realise that she was one of the rare ​‘It girls’ with tal­ent. Boys Don’t Cry was the first film that real­ly won Sevi­gny recog­ni­tion for her act­ing skills, and she went on to receive an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for Best Sup­port­ing Actress.

She plays Lana, a small town girl who hates her life, and it’s hard to blame her. Lana lives with an alco­holic moth­er, and is sur­round­ed on a dai­ly basis by men who objec­ti­fy and belit­tle her. There is a scene, ear­ly on, in which Lana is brand­ed a ​“skanky whore” for refus­ing to have a drink with a strange man she meets in a liquor store. It’s no sur­prise that when Bran­don Teena arrives in town, he catch­es her eye. He is kind, gen­tle and respect­ful, and these attrib­ut­es are sparse in the male pop­u­la­tion of Fall City.

I was cap­ti­vat­ed by her first appear­ance in this film, in the town karaōke bar. She sings along to ​‘The Bluest Eyes in Texas’ with two of her friends. Her flame orange hair and red lips are lumi­nous in the bad­ly lit room, and her seduc­tive stare and silky smooth voice bewitch­es Bran­don, as well as all of us. Chloe brings a famil­iar­i­ty to Lana. She’s a girl we might have come across grow­ing up, one who presents a tough exte­ri­or but on the inside is just afraid of let­ting peo­ple see her vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. The more time she spends with Bran­don, the more those defences fade away, and her real char­ac­ter shines through.

Lana is a role mod­el. In a town full of arro­gant men who don’t know how to treat women, she stands up for her­self. She is head­strong, and she knows what she wants, she has ambi­tions. What makes Sevigny’s per­for­mance so clever is that we nev­er quite grasp whether she knows the truth about Bran­don. There are enough clues (when they have their first sex­u­al encounter, Lana sees down his shirt, reveal­ing breasts wrapped tight­ly in a ban­dage). Either she is in com­plete denial, know­ing some­thing but refus­ing to acknowl­edge it, or she is just so hap­py to have found some­one that will treat her with respect that she is will­ing to look past it.

When she can no longer ignore the truth, she stands by Bran­don, show­ing such unshake­able loy­al­ty in a town that is rife with unin­formed prej­u­dice. Where oth­ers react with vio­lent rage, she shows kind­ness, refus­ing to aban­don him despite the decep­tion. We wan­der where it was that she learned to be so com­pas­sion­ate, as it cer­tain­ly wasn’t from her moth­er, and her father is nowhere to be seen. She has found some­one that she con­nects with on a soul lev­el, and she is will­ing to accept him com­plete­ly as he is, and there is some­thing incred­i­bly mov­ing about that. Her char­ac­ter rep­re­sents a pos­si­ble response to the sit­u­a­tion, and that is one of com­plete, uncom­pro­mised sym­pa­thy and acceptance.

Sevi­gny went on to satr along­side Chris­t­ian Bale in 2000’s Amer­i­can Psy­cho, anoth­er role she makes mem­o­rable despite its lim­it­ed screen time, and many oth­er stars since. She has such a dis­tinct char­ac­ter, and it is nev­er lost, no mat­ter what her char­ac­ter requires. She is always total­ly, unaf­fect­ed­ly, her­self and I look for­ward to see­ing her in what­ev­er role she takes on. She’s like that cool girl at school, the one you were quite scared of but always want­ed to be friends with. On a rare occa­sion you might man­age to make her laugh, and you’d be feel­ing pret­ty good about your­self for the rest of the day.