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The Crying Game (1992) is a popular and critically acclaimed Irish film written and directed by Neil Jordan. The film explores themes of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Irish Troubles. The original working title of this film was The Soldier's Wife.

The film was notable for its dramatic plot twist, when the male protagonist discovers that his love interest is a transwoman. The film is also notable for its sympathetic portrayal of characters from often-reviled subcultures, presented here as complex and likable human beings. Audiences accepted the film as a thriller, but also as an unconventional romance. As one of the first mainstream dramas to deal with transgender issues, it has become a major film in discussions of alternative sexualities and popular culture.

Synopsis

The Crying Game is about the main character Fergus' experiences as a member of the IRA which often employed questionable and potentially deadly methods to achieve its missions, his brief but meaningful encounter with Jody (held as prisoner by the group), and his romantic relationship with Jody's girlfriend, Dil, whom Fergus promised Jody he would protect. However, unexpected events force Fergus to decide what he wants for the future, and ultimately what his nature dictates that he must do.

Plot

The film begins as a psychological thriller, as IRA foot soldier Fergus (played by Stephen Rea) and a unit of other IRA members, including Jude (Miranda Richardson) and led by Maguire (Adrian Dunbar) kidnap Jody, a British soldier (played by Forest Whitaker). The IRA members demand the release of other jailed IRA and threaten to execute Jody in three days if their demands are not met.

While Fergus guards Jody, they develop a bond. Jody, in particular, tells him the story about the frog and the scorpion: the scorpion, wishing to cross a stream, asked the frog to let him ride his back over the stream. When the frog asked the scorpion how he could be sure that the scorpion would not sting him, the scorpion replied that if he did sting him, it would mean death by drowning for both of them. The frog complies, carrying the scorpion on its back across the stream. Before they reach the other side, however, the frog feels pain and realizes that the scorpion has stung him. He protests, "Why did you sting me, Mr. Scorpion? For now we both will drown!" The scorpion replies, "I can't help it, it's in my nature."

Jody persuades Fergus to meet his girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), after he is killed and make sure she is all right. The deadline set by Jody's captors passes and Jody is to be executed. Fergus takes Jody into the woods to carry out the sentence, but cannot bring himself to shoot him, and Jody is instead accidentally run over and killed by British tanks when he attempts to flee across a road. Fergus then hides from his IRA companions in London, where he takes a job as a day laborer with the alias "Jimmy". While in London, Fergus meets Jody's attractive girlfriend, Dil, in a bar, where he sees her singing "The Crying Game."

Even then, though, Fergus still suffers from guilt about Jody's death, seeing him in his dreams bowling a cricket ball to him. Nonetheless, he continues to pursue Dil, protecting her from an obsessive suitor and gradually falling in love with her. However, when he later is about to make love to her in her apartment, he discovers that she has a penis and is thus a transwoman, and his initial reaction is of revulsion. He accidentally hits Dil in the face as he rushes to the bathroom to throw up, leaving a bruise, and leaving her on the floor by herself.

At around the same time, Jude unexpectedly reappears in Fergus' apartment with a new mission for him: aid in assassinating a well-known official. She also offhandedly mentions that she knows about Fergus and Dil, telling him to "forget about that girl."

Fergus, however, cannot overcome his attraction to Dil, who keeps on wooing him, and shields her from possible retribution by his IRA members by giving her a haircut and male clothes as a disguise. The night before the IRA mission is to be carried out, Dil gets heavily drunk and Fergus has to escort her to her apartment, where Dil asks for him to stay with her for the rest of the night. Fergus complies, then admits to Dil that he had an indirect hand in bringing about her former boyfriend's death. Dil, drunk, appears to not have understood, but in the morning before Fergus wakes up, ties him to the bed, unwittingly preventing him from joining the other IRA members and completing the assassination according to plan.

Dil, holding Fergus at gunpoint, forces Fergus to tell her by the tune of "The Crying Game" that he loves her and will never leave her. When Fergus does so, Dil unties him, saying that even if he's lying, it's still nice to hear his words. Dil then breaks down into tears.

Just then, an exasperated Jude comes into their room with a gun, seeking to kill Fergus for missing the assassination he was to commit. Dil quickly shoots at her, realizing that she was complicit in Jody's death, and that she used her sexuality to trick him. After finishing her off, Dil then points the gun at Fergus, but then lowers her hand, saying that she cannot kill him because Jody will not allow her to. A sympathetic Fergus prevents Dil from shooting herself in the mouth, and tells Dil to hide out in the club for a while. When Dil is gone, he wipes her fingerprints off the gun, and allows himself to be arrested in place of Dil.

The epilogue takes place a few months later. Fergus, in prison, is visited by Dil. Dil, after discussing with Fergus on their plans once he gets out of jail, asks him why he took the fall for her in the first place. Fergus responds, "As a man once said, it's in my nature," and then proceeds to tell Dil the story of the frog and the scorpion he heard from Jody.

Production details

The film was originally released in Ireland and the UK, where it failed at the box office. However, it was a sleeper hit in the U.S., thanks in part to a memorable advertising campaign which asked audiences not to reveal the film's secret. It was received to critical acclaim and went on to be nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Writer-director Neil Jordan won an Oscar for his screenplay. The film went on to success around the world, including a re-release in Britain and Ireland.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film was produced by Anne Dudley and the Pet Shop Boys, and Boy George scored his first hit in years with his recording of the title song - a song that had been a hit in the 1960s for British singer Dave Berry. The closing rendition of Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" was performed by American singer Lyle Lovett. Scores 9 through 16 are orchestral, composed by Anne Dudley and performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra Of London.

The film's soundtrack was released on February 23, 1993 as The Crying Game: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album.

1. "The Crying Game" - Boy George
2. "When a Man Loves a Woman" - Percy Sledge
3. "Live for Today" (Orchestral) - Cicero and Sylvia Mason-James
4. "Let the Music Play" - Carroll Thompson
5. "White Cliffs of Dover" - The Blue Jays
6. "Live for Today" (Gospel) - Cicero
7. "The Crying Game" - Dave Berry
8. "Stand by Your Man" - Lyle Lovett
9. "The Soldier's Wife"
10. "It's in my Nature"
11. "March to the Execution"
12. "I'm Thinking of You"
13. "Dies Irae"
14. "The Transformation"
15. "The Assassination"
16. "The Soldier's Tale"

Cast

The acclaimed cast included Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Forest Whitaker, Jaye Davidson, Jim Broadbent and Adrian Dunbar.

Davidson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, although the prize went to Gene Hackman for his performance in Unforgiven.

Reaction and criticism

The Crying Game received a 100% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 34 positive reviews. Critics praised the film as an unconventional classic with an effective plot twist, although later reviews stressed character development and themes over the now-famous twist.

Roger Ebert gave the film a four-star rating and described it as one that "involves us deeply in the story, and then it reveals that the story is really about something else altogether."

Gene Siskel, during Siskel and Ebert's annual "Memo to the Academy" program, gave away the ending of the film while giving his review.

In popular culture

• In the episode "Marge in Chains" of The Simpsons, Mayor Quimby lets the famous plot twist of The Crying Game slip during an election campaign.
• In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), when Ace (Jim Carrey) deduces that the murderer is a woman who used to be a man, the song "Crying Game" starts to play.
• In the episode "The Doorman" of Seinfeld, George sees his father with his shirt off, and notices that he has breasts. Then he says that he threw up all night: It was "his own personal Crying Game."
• In the Father Ted episode "The Passion of St Tibulus", two characters discuss The Crying Game, describing the plot-twist moment and mentioning that "they got his lad out".
• The twist is revealed in a sketch of the Robot Chicken episode "Vegetable Funfest ".
• In the 2005 film Breakfast on Pluto, Jordan would tell another tale of a sympathetic transgender person getting entangled in the Irish Troubles, and the film would also feature Rea. Pluto, however, was much more stylized and episodic than The Crying Game, and proved less popular with audiences.

See also

• Transgender in film and television
• Twist ending

References

1. Ebert, Roger. Review of The Crying Game. December 18, 1992.

External links

• The Crying Game at IMDb
• Queer theory and The Crying Game
• Review of the movie

• 1992 films
• British films
• Irish films
• Transgender in film
• LGBT-related films
• English-language films
• Palace Pictures films