{"id":624047,"date":"2026-10-08T05:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/624047\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T05:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:26:13","slug":"big-girls-dont-cry-review-a-new-zealand-teenager-finds-herself-in-tender-coming-of-age-tale-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/624047\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry review \u2013 a New Zealand teenager finds herself in tender coming-of-age tale | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

All coming-of-age films face the challenge of how to convey that intermediary period between childhood and adulthood, with all the confusion, awkwardness and self-searching that entails. Writer-director Paloma Schneideman\u2019s drama Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry meets that challenge, resulting in a tenderly drawn story about the slow process of a 14-year-old in rural New Zealand<\/a> finding herself.<\/p>\n

Schneideman\u2019s film has a wonderfully unforced quality, unfolding in a deeply satisfying yet seemingly effortless way. It\u2019s as if the cameras are simply recording events organically unfolding in front of them, which of course isn\u2019t the case at all: a drama like this requires immense thought and preparation. (The film is the first to be produced under the auspices of the Jane Campion-led film-making course A Wave in the Ocean<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The best coming-of-age stories tend to follow rebellious characters (like Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows<\/a> and Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause<\/a>), outsiders (like Mia Williams in Fish Tank<\/a> and Sybylla Melvyn in My Brilliant Career<\/a>), or the more experimental and vulnerable kind (like Heidi in Somersault<\/a> and Lidia in Kristen Stewart\u2019s magnificent directorial debut The Chronology of Water<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s Sid (Ani Palmer), who is a difficult person to categorise. She\u2019s a bit of an introvert, a bit of a tough nut to crack: rarely outwardly friendly, but not exactly standoffish either.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 2006, pre-smartphones and more or less pre-social media. During a six-week summer break, Sid starts hanging out with other teenagers \u2013 including Lana (Beatrix Rain Wolfe) and Stevie (Sophia Kirkwood Smith) \u2013 and doing very teenager-type stuff: attending house parties, drinking booze on the sly, and awkwardly interacting with the opposite sex. Sid\u2019s father, Leo (Noah Taylor, so good recently in Thou Shalt Not Steal<\/a>), is a straight-talking layabout and her best friend is Tia (Ng\u0101taitangirua Hita), whom she doesn\u2019t treat very well.<\/p>\n

\u2018The film captures Sid coming to terms with her queerness, though that too is handled quite subtly.\u2019 Photograph: Jen Raoult<\/p>\n

Schneideman gets the small moments just right. When Sid shotguns a beer, then deals with sleazy teenage boys; when she smokes weed for the first time; when she simply lounges about with friends or looks at herself in the mirror. At times she goes online, visiting seedy chatrooms and pretending to be other people for shits and giggles \u2013 an act that has real-world consequences, reflecting the new dangers and challenges presented by the internet in the 21st century. The film captures Sid coming to terms with her queerness, though that too is handled quite subtly.<\/p>\n

None of the above scenarios are revelatory from a narrative perspective, and perhaps they seem insignificant when reduced to words. But they are evergreen \u2013 the kinds of moments and scenes that remain eternally relevant to the human experience, particularly the experience of being young.<\/p>\n

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Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry is a class act aesthetically, with an autumnal colour scheme and intuitive-feeling editing. Cinematographer Mar\u00eda In\u00e9s Manchego has a good eye for interesting depictions of everyday objects and occurrences, making domestic scenes look polished, though never in an overtly showy way.<\/p>\n

The drama is boosted by highly captivating and layered performances, especially from Palmer as Sid. She\u2019s restrained and yet so emotive, powerfully conveying a person going through profound growth and change. It\u2019s unclear what aspects of her personality will fade away or remain across the course of her life.<\/p>\n

Like the film itself, Palmer\u2019s performance is not remotely didactic: we\u2019re not told what to think or how to respond, particularly when it comes to moral perspectives. And again, like many excellent coming-of-age films, there\u2019s a curious sense of open-endedness: a feeling that this story just keeps going, well beyond the final frame.<\/p>\n

Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry is out in Australian cinemas now and select theatres in the US from 9 October, with a UK release yet to be announced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All coming-of-age films face the challenge of how to convey that intermediary period between childhood and adulthood, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-624047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}