As the youngest of eight children, I didn’t really understand my older siblings’ adolescent experiences. I was too busy being that awkward, dopey queer kid who zigged and zagged around too fast so nobody would catch onto me. In particular, I feel like I missed out on the growing pains of my two queer sisters, not fully seeing them until we were all adults. I also have a queer stepsister around my age who happened to be my childhood girlfriend decades before we became family. I was surrounded by lesbians and yet missed those crucial years of their maturity. By the time I grew to learn from them, they already had one foot out the door on their way to college.
All of this is to say that writer-director Paloma Schneideman’s feature debut, Big Girls Don’t Cry, feels like it was made for me as a way to fill in those gap years when my sisters came of age. I’m under no illusion that I’m the intended audience for this film, but anybody who has ever flailed about when they hit those teen years will find universality in this story.
The movie centers on Sid (a remarkable acting debut from Ani Palmer and a dead ringer for Schneideman), a 14-year-old growing up in rural New Zealand circa 2006. Remember that time before smart phones and social media where we connected by actually getting together? Well, Sid struggles to connect with just about everyone. She lives with her single father Leo (Noah Taylor) who runs a lawn maintenance business and drinks a lot of boxed wine to maybe forget his failed art career. Sid also has an older sister Adele (Tara Canton) who has returned from university for Christmas Break with her American foreign exchange student Freya (Rain Spencer) in tow. Along with her sister, Sid witnesses her sleepy town getting overrun with many affluent students also on holiday.
Caught between childhood and adulthood, Sid’s life forever changes as she interacts with this flood of new people. Her usual bubble consists of a deep friendship with Tia (Ngataitangirua Hita), but Sid’s wandering eyes sets their sights on some of the young women who hang out at a nearby beach. Messy as can be (and aren’t those the best leading characters?), Sid hacks into Tia’s brother’s computer and starts chatting/flirting with one of those said girls. Remember AOL Instant Messenger? This film wants you to feel that frisson in the years before “sexting”! Needless to say, Sid’s ever-increasing cavalcade of lies leads to a lot of hurt feelings in their wake. Out of curiosity or peer pressure, Sid also explores some of the young men in town, perhaps as a way to hide her true feelings. It leads to some tense, scary situations, all beautifully captured by Schneideman and her talented cinematographer, Maria Ines Manchego. They stick very close to Sid from beginning to end, and Palmer proves herself a master at holding a close-up in an impressive mix of vulnerability and assuredness. You can’t help but want to watch Sid as she makes mistake after mistake, often lying through her teeth. She’s not perfect, but who was at fourteen?
On the surface, this sounds like any dime-a-dozen coming-of-age story, and technically, it is, but the devil, as we all know, lies in the details. This film gets those details exactly right. Sid’s not gonna crumble when caught spinning tales. She’s gonna remain steadfast and stoic to defend her shaky turf. She’s not a bad person, but she sure does do a lot of stupid things. By the time she lies to her father about how her bedroom window got broken, for example, we already know the “classic Sid” response. Schneideman’s not reinventing the wheel here, but she has definitely put her own spit and polish on it. Her skewed way of observing these characters, with plenty of off-kilter framing and sun-dappled, memory-defining settings reminded me a bit of the great Andrea Arnold, but Schneideman carves out her own identity as someone who has a remarkable sense of place. Some of the New Zealand vistas are stunning (and how could they not be?), but she makes them look natural and lived-in instead of like a National Geographic spread. She also has a wonderful way of letting us into Sid’s world as she stares at another woman’s midriff or laughs along with a group of men who grossly sexualize her. Sid’s both an explorer and a survivor. This film shines a light on her navigational skills, good and bad.
While I don’t think this film sets the world on fire, it serves as a fantastic calling card for Schneideman, who was discovered by the great Jane Campion, and Palmer as well as a natural and charming performance by Spencer. Noah Taylor, as always, proves he’s one of the best character actors around. While Big Girls Don’t Cry doesn’t completely get beyond its “The Summer That Changed Everything” genre, I do look forward to what comes next for these new voices in cinema. Furthermore, I can’t wait to talk to my sisters about their younger years.
By Glenn Gaylord, Senior Film Critic
Big Girls Don’t Cry opened in US theaters on October 6th.
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