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’s drama Big Girls Don’t Cry meets that challenge, resulting in a tenderly drawn story about the slow process of a 14-year-old in rural New Zealand finding herself.
Schneideman’s film has a wonderfully unforced quality, unfolding in a deeply satisfying yet seemingly effortless way. It’s as if the cameras are simply recording events organically unfolding in front of them, which of course isn’t 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.)
