text: 6 . Boys Don 't Cry . Starkly beautiful , Kimberly Peirce 's debut film has at its core a tragicomic That the cross-dressing Brandon Teena , a k a Teena Brandon ( the rapturous Hillary Swank ) feels most at home among the sort of roughnecks who would kill her if they knew her true gender .
  
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  Boys Don 't Cry took two years to film .