★★★★½ - THE POST
- Big Girls Don’t Cry is a modern NZ classic -
I don’t have much time for “looking back”. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that counts is what we do next. But, it has stuck in my head that the first week of October in 2006 was the first time I had a review published in this newspaper, so this week marks my 20th year of being your friendly neighbourhood film reviewer.
And I’m glad that I get to celebrate that anniversary in the only way that matters: by having a rave about one of the best films I’ve seen from anywhere in 2026 - and one of my favourite New Zealand-made films in years.
Big Girls Don’t Cry has already played at the Sundance, London, Melbourne and Toronto film festivals, and it has picked up awards and fans everywhere it has been shown. It was also the opening night feature at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival, where it earned a standing ovation that was maybe the longest and loudest I’ve heard in 10 years. So I’m happy as hell that it is also getting a general release, and more New Zealanders will be able to see this film.
Debut feature director Paloma Schneideman sets Big Girls Don’t Cry in 2006, north of Auckland, in and around a beachside community where the gap between rich and poor is as stark as the gravel road that connects the older part of town to the brand new beachfront holiday mansions.
Fourteen-year-old Sid is negotiating summer as a newly fledged teenager. She is desperate to be accepted by her sister’s 17 and 18-year-old friends - but she doesn’t want to lose the mates she already has. To add to Sid’s social and hormonal turmoil, US exchange student Freya is staying at the house Sid shares with her sister and her dad.
As Sid, Ani Palmer carries and channels a beautifully calibrated and defined emotional arc. Sid is hitting adolescence hard. Her sexuality is waking up and she wants to take her place in a world of adults. But the relationships she has relied on so far - with her friends, family and community - are all still an essential part of Sid’s structure. Becoming who she wants to be, might mean setting fire to some bridges that Sid really can’t afford to lose.
Around Ani, Beatrix Rain Wolfe is excellent as best friend Lana, and Rain Spencer (The Summer I Turned Pretty) is perfect as the older, worldlier Freya. Aussie veteran Noah Taylor (Game of Thrones) is a rock as Leo, Sid’s lost and likeably hopeless dad.
Coming-of-age stories playing out over a transformative summer aren't exactly a groundbreaking genre. But Schneideman, with her cast and crew, make Big Girls Don’t Cry into something fresh, bold and pretty much flawless.
Behind the camera, cinematographer Maria Ines Manchego (Caterpillar, Uproar) works some magic. Ines Manchego keeps her cameras roving, restless and animated. She puts on a masterclass in shooting a film almost entirely from the point of view of the characters - and it makes Big Girls Don’t Cry fluidly beautiful and damn near hypnotic on the screen.
Big Girls Don’t Cry is an insightful, darkly funny and blazingly intelligent piece of writing and film-making. I reckon it can take its place next to In My Father’s Den, Boy, The Dark Horse and a small handful of other recent Kiwi classics. Go and see it on a big screen.
- Graeme Tuckett, THE POST
Big Girls Don't Cry is now playing at Light House Cinema!