A queer coming-of-age story set in rural New Zealand, Paloma Schneideman’s Big Girls Don’t Cry is an unusual debut feature for a film about awkward youth. Taking place during a cloudy December summer in the mid-2000s, the film’s deliberate plotlessness is enveloped in a harsh atmosphere and unique visual palette, complemented by a gentle (but undaunted) approach to its maladjusted teenage protagonist, brought to life by a fearless young actress and a director who makes each layer of rich detail in her story and setting feel natural and effortless.
Ani Palmer plays Sidney “Sid” Bookerman, a boyish 14-year-old white brunette with a pixie cut and a lofty demeanor. Her last name evokes a kind of bookish isolation, but as the school year ends, she manages to spend some quality time with her best friend, a Maori teenager named Tia (Ngātai Hita). It’s 2006, and Tia’s popular older brother Diggy (Poloaki Merritt-Macdonald) has more friends on MSN Messenger than the girls can fathom. Luckily, Tia knows his password, so they can impersonate him and send silly messages to his contacts for Hibari. But for Sid, accessing this suddenly higher social status is a unique and complicated opportunity. As Diggy, she begins chatting with Lana (Beatrix Lane Wolfe), an attractive blonde girl in her class, and eventually tries to befriend her directly.
Sid begins spending time with the slim, model-like Lana and Stevie (Sophia Kirkwood-Smith), who admires her. They like that Sid has free access to his father’s liquor cabinet. The story creates a fascinating pseudo-catfishing tale steeped not only in an unstable teenage self-image, but also, more subtly, in the numerous hierarchies that define both teenage and adult life. Sid is single and lives in the town of Matakana with his alcoholic father Leo (Noah Taylor), who is often neglected. Leo wanted to be a painter, but now he mows the lawns of wealthy neighbors and wealthy boys visiting Oakland who occupy beachfront mansions near Omaha. Sid tails Lana and Stevie (who lie about his age) and also befriends a trio of college students whose playful side borders on sexually predatory.
During this time, she hides her class background from her new friends, rejects her less popular non-white best friend, and accompanies older rich kids to parties, all while struggling with her growing sexuality. She knows she is going out with one of the boys, but as she copies Lana’s dress style and even her earrings, she finds herself looking at the golden-haired woman with admiration. Further complicating matters, Sid’s older sister Adele (Tara Canton) returns home from college and attends many of the same parties with her college friend, Freya (Layne Spencer), a sweet American exchange student. Freya is an equally attractive blonde who occupies a delicate space between Cid’s desires and her personal desires. She has girls she admires and wants to be, and in the process of trying to be by their side, she leaves behind Tia, who is perhaps the only person she feels comfortable expressing these dizzying thoughts to.
Immersing us in period-appropriate hip-hop tracks, Schneideman creates a vibrant world inhabited by characters whose dimensions and actions are clearly articulated but hidden behind their social functions, as Sid begins to see each person as a means to an end. From implicit racial dynamics, such as Syd rejecting Tia in favor of her white friends, to financial insecurities surrounding her self-image, Syd’s precarious new social status is on a knife’s edge. But the film’s tension comes not from a ticking clock, but from the boundless feeling of a high school summer. There, time and environment extend outwards with no end in sight, threatening to preserve Sid’s most embarrassing failures in amber. Quietly terrifying.
Palmer’s concept of Sid is amazing. It opens with a broad impression of clasped hands, slouched posture, and sweeping glances, but as the drama unfolds, the frame zeroes in on each seemingly satirical aspect before grounding itself in emotional truth, giving the film a kind of hypernuance. It’s a kind of performance that creates a visual map to your character’s inner emotional logic, allowing you to track every ill-considered decision or deception. But the film’s hidden heart and soul is undoubtedly Sid’s hot-tempered father, Leo, whose layers the actor slowly peels back as Taylor constantly harbors the flames of financial insecurity and deep-seated frustration at his destiny in life. He hates and idolizes Sid at the same time, resulting in a deeply troubled relationship unraveling in a meaningful way.
As the summer air thickens with diffused sunlight and harsh humidity, a psychological fog settles over the young protagonist. The more Syd gets what she wants (or thinks she wants), the more complicated her life seems to become. It’s only a matter of time before new friendships become unstable or manipulative. It’s the usual teenage selfishness that can’t help but feel like a betrayal to her. The fact that she feels used goes hand in hand with her unstable invisibility and hypervisibility, which leaves her unable to control the situation and is what this busy teen ultimately comes to realize. How she is seen and how she perceives herself is reflected wonderfully by Schneidemann’s naturalistic camera and languid but always purposeful editing that instills certain emotions, potentially stirring up memories of one’s own best and worst teenage years in the process.
