Bad boy story

Watching The Boy Who Cried Bitch left me with the same reaction after seeing Hal Hartley's "Trust" more than fifteen years ago.

"Where are the awards?"

1991 was quite a year for these grim, character-driven indie films. As "Silence of the Lambs" dominated the year critically, films like Trust and The Boy Who Cried Bitch were hanging from the helicopter rafters of Hollywood. With its modest production value and emphasis on the performances of the actors, this family drama offers more of a meditation of childhood mental health within the context of family dysfunction. It's terse and brilliant script penned by Catherine May Levin, was supposedly based on true events but I cannot find a lot of other information about the author. Is she the mother of a child with a mental illness? Was she the child, but she made the character into a boy for the film? I don't know how this story connects to her life and I am interested in knowing more about the author because it really is a well-written piece of celluloid

While the leading role of the stuttering, violent, maladjusted Dan Love - played bey Harley Cross receives most of the well-deserved accolades, the real show stealer here is the role of Candice Love, the mother played by Karen Young. This is truly one of the most riveting performances I've seen in years. Imagine the commanding, emotional range of Sally Field without the ham. Her eye movements, the delivery of the lines, her intermittent shifts between mania hopelessness. The acting is stellar all around. I would also like to give an honorable mention to Dennis Boutsikaris. He has really locked himself into quite an archetype as the soft-spoken yet arrogant Dr. Orin Fell the head psychologist of the mental hospital that Dan is confined in. He exudes a soft-evil, a passive-aggressive, manipulative agent of authority not too far from his characters portrayed in "The Dream Team" and in "Better Call Saul."

The main drawback of this film is the production quality which is fortunately saved by the performances and the script. A better sound design could have been implemented. There are scenes where the boom mic is in the shot and there is a great presence of hisses when the actors say their "s" and "p" sounds. Aside from that, I would highly recommend this film. If you are a fan of the "troubled-teen-trying-to-adjust" trope in cinema, like Good Will Hunting, White Oleander, etc., then The Boy Who Cried Bitch offers a much more harrowing, less Hollywood-feel-good, approach to this difficult subject.

The Boy Who Cried Bitch, is not only one of the best flicks I've seen in a while, but it's also one of the best movie titles I've ever come across.

The story basically follows a young boy who suffers from serious mental issues. From his interactions with his family and how he rules the roost, to his interaction with the people who run the institution he eventually heads to.

The Boy Who Cried Bitch was a incredibly intimate feeling flick that was really realistic in it's story-telling and it's portrayal of a young boy not being able to cope with the outside world. From not having a father to guide him and to having an incredibly immature and imbalanced mother, all the ingredients are there for a young kid to go awry and not benefit from a nurturing family.

I've seriously got to commend the little dude who played the disturbed young kid. Harley Cross (cool ass name), is a genuine child-star and one performance I'll never forget. He's actually reason enough to watch this flick. I should give the producers and directors some love too, since I'm sure it's somewhat tough to direct young kids. And to do it as well as this, is damn impressive.

It's been a while since I've seen a flick where I've been grabbed so fast and yanked right into the feel and atmosphere. Right away, you've got Harley screaming at his mother, "Slut bitch!" And not long after you've got the Mom yanking her shirt showing.....never mind, I'll just simply say, if you get the chance to see The Boy Who Cried Bitch don't let it pass by. This a really, really good flick.

After seeing the Boy Who Cried Bitch, you might be left wondering what happened in 1991 that they couldn't release this film. This movie is one of the few effortlessly fused Theater Release with TV Movie of the Week that perhaps it lost it's footing in both venues. A shame that more people didn't get the chance to see what is surely a great performance by a young Harley Cross. This is before "Shriek If you know what I did Last Friday the 13th" but shortly after Believers.

Harley was a young actor to watch with notable films "Cohen and Tate" peeking with "Perdita Durango" and an otherwise downward slide to obscurity since. He certainly shines in this role as a confused and psychotic adolescent on the brink of madness struggling to find a place in the outside that compliments his inner demons. Rarely have we seen a young actor display such range and for this reason alone, this movie should have shucked the title and some of the cursing for something a bit more palatable to the mainstream public.

BWCB was unique in that it explored some of the complexities of child abuse, manic depression and a mother's ultimate failure to connect with her child in a way that is not cliché. For example a good scene early on has Dan (Cross) being seduced by a groundskeeper who obviously tries to fill a father's role and lure the boy into a man-boy relationship. Dan turns the power position around and immediately uses the man for beer and food for his brothers and friends. This film takes an honest look at young teens, not shying away from the way they talk and the amount of insight they have with their adult relationships.

I recommend this film for those looking for a good hearted, insightful, sometimes dark and emotional journey through a troubled teen's life.

6/10 Maddis

I am very fond of looking socially aware dramas acted by young actors as a leading or a key supporting roles. From this point of view, Harley Cross in this movie is the most brilliant among them. He plays main character who has a personality disorder and whose situation turns progressively worse by a mental hospital. His part is so difficult to act even by an adult actor. But he did it only by 12 old years old. It is very touching to view the superb acting which has never done by his age. As a result, he won the Best Actor at Valladolid International Film Festival in 1991. When we check the winner at that time, we can see Antonio Banderas (1989), Dirk Bogarde (1990), Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino et al. from "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992) and Gian Maria Volonté (1993). There were distinguished representatives in those epoch. As a result, this movie is worth to see only by looking his performance. It is really sorry for him he has not recognized as talented child actor after this movie.

HARLEY CROSS gives an amazingly powerful performance as a young boy with a psychotic mental problem. This is a movie that will have you on the edge of your seat one minute and almost crying the next. It is beyond belief at how the most amazing movie performance of the young actor's career would get absolutely no recognition. The movie goes deep inside the boy's crazed mind through some heavy suspenseful scenes which if anything helps one truly understand someone with a mental problem a little better. Also it's probably the first time JASON BIGGS has ever been seen in a movie at a very young 9 years old. If you ever find the rare chance to watch a copy of this hard-to-find unreleased movie on video----do not pass the chance. The shock-ending will blow you away.