Film Review: Big Girls Don't Cry (Große Mädchen weinen nicht, 2002)
American teen drama Thirteen was one of the more talked-about films in 2003, later becoming known as a springboard for the careers of director Catherine Hardwicke and actress Evan Rachel Wood. Its subject matter and controversially realistic depiction of dysfunctional teenagers also overshadowed a similar German film that had appeared a few months earlier, the 2002 drama Big Girls Don’t Cry, written and directed by Maria von Heland.
Like in Thirteen, the protagonists of Big Girls Don’t Cry are two teenagers, although they are slightly older and, at least nominally, less dysfunctional. Kati (played by Anna Maria Mühe) and Steffi (played by Karoline Herfürth) are two high school students who have been best friends since childhood, despite their different social backgrounds. Kati grew up in a modest blue-collar family that maintains traditional Christian values, while Steffi’s parents belong to the upper middle class and like to present themselves as “liberated” and progressive. They enjoy hanging out together, which includes a visit to a nightclub, where Steffi, to her utmost horror, sees her father in a compromising position with a woman other than her mother. Infuriated, she decides to get revenge on the woman by having her teenage daughter Tessa (played by Josephine Domes) tricked into a humiliating band audition. However, when Tessa actually performs well, Steffi is further enraged and plots an even more sinister trick by using her acquaintance Yvonne (played by Jennifer Ulrich) to set Tessa up for a photo shoot with a pornographer. Kati thinks that Steffi has gone over the line and intervenes, endangering her friendship in the process.
Big Girls Don’t Cry was the first major feature film for Swedish director Maria von Heland. Nevertheless, it represents the work of a confident and experienced filmmaker, directed with a steady hand and utilising the relatively limited resources of German cinema in a way that makes her film superior to many Hollywood films of the same sort. Big Girls Don’t Cry doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and its script revolves around universal issues of coming of age and the many challenges teenagers face in the modern world. What sets it apart from Hollywood is its freedom from MPAA censorship standards. Because of that, von Heland is much more explicit in dealing with issues of sex and drugs. However, the film at times ventures into rather dark territory that even involves violence against women and almost becomes a crime thriller, making the ending somewhat disappointingly conventional and Hollywood-like. Big Girls Don’t Cry, on the other hand, benefits greatly from a young, good-looking, and enthusiastic cast, especially Karoline Herfurth. Big Girls Don’t Cry is a good film, although it was unfortunately overshadowed by its better-publicised Hollywood equivalent. Those who watch von Heland’s work now are likely to conclude that it deserved much more recognition.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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