The true story (told before in a documentary, The Brandon Teena Story) of a young Nebraska woman in a "sexual identity crisis," and on the dodge from the law, who reversed her first and last names, attempted to pass as a man in a redneck corner of the state, and was raped and murdered for her deception, is nothing if not sordid; and first-time filmmaker Kimberly Peirce is wise not to sentimentalize the heroine into any sort of symbol. Still, you would like to know more about her as an individual. What did she think she was up to? How serious was her talk of a sex change? Things like that. The bare facts of the case, though they have the innate fascination of the odd and the outré, are ultimately pretty depressing; and Peirce never probes beneath the bare facts. Then, too, if we are to stay forever on the surface, the little matter of outward credibility looms larger in importance. And the unavoidable hurdle on that track is of course the casting of the lead. Hilary Swank, whose major credit before this was The Next Karate Kid, doesn't clear it cleanly. She does all right with the voice -- low and throaty -- but even though she looks all right on her own, in a young Monty Clift or Robby Benson kind of way, she is slightly built and delicately sculpted even for a girl. And seeing her alongside the hairy Peter Sarsgaard and Brendan Sexton III, or the bigger and round-featured Chloë Sevigny, puts a severe strain on belief. And her compulsive smileyness hardly adds ballast. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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