Big Girls Don’t Cry

Synopsis

Fourteen-year-old Sid Bookman spends the summer of 2006 in rural New Zealand trying to understand the distance between childhood and the adult world she wants to enter. Her loneliness draws her towards older teenagers, and a crush on an older girl gives that longing a particular focus. The early internet offers another set of images and identities to imitate, without necessarily giving Sid the language to understand herself. She experiments with how to behave and who to become in the hope of being accepted. Paloma Schneideman’s coming-of-age drama follows queer desire as an awkward, formative experience rather than an already settled identity. Sid’s attempts to belong expose the gap between performing maturity and having the experience to navigate what she feels.