Boys... is the tragedy of one person who could take on two different identities-of man and woman-and yet be so convincing to leave many emotionally shattered when the truth is revealed. And it is this identity crisis-the struggle to be accepted for whatever we are-which helps the film to strike an emotional chord with its audience.
Based on a true-life story set in Falls City, Nebraska, in 1993, the film has Brandon playing a stranger to a small town. His charming innocence sets women's hearts afire. But this young boy has a dark secret-he is not the lady killer everyone thinks he is. He is, in fact, a woman. The seeds of tragedy are sown when Brandon falls in love with Lana (Chloe Sevigny), a cool, diffident young woman for whom the stranger from Lincoln was everything she has desired. She even defends her lover when, to her bitterness, his deepest secret is revealed. The violence erupts when her boyfriend and her mother's lover, John (Peter Sarasgaard), an ex-con, can't see her drifting away from him and kills Brandon brutally in a shattering finale, leaving Lana back where it all began. She refuses to accept that theirs was a lesbian relationship and continues to live on that false premise.
Brutal and gory at times (it comes to our desi screens with four cuts of frontal nudity and a brutal rape scene), it is a must watch for the sheer power of Swank's natural portrayal of Brandon (she reportedly roamed around the town and the sets as a man) and Peirce's ability to evoke sympathy for her dramatis personae.
