Based on the real-life experiences of a young boy abandoned to the care system as a baby, this bleak and plaintive British film is a sobering experience that addresses bullying, institutional abuse, suicide and toxic masculinity, juxtaposing the boy's life in a children's home in the 1970s with his life as a young post-prison male in the 1990s. Michael Socha plays the broken, haunted adult Jacko with his characteristically invested, heartbreaking sensitivity and depth, and Mitchell Norman plays the younger version with a sympathetic conviction. Although there is an apparent mainstreaming of some facts to fit a more generic narrative here, with its washed-out colour palette and mournful soundtrack Big Boys Don't Cry is a small, quiet and very sad film that coveys its difficult subject matter in a careful, unflinching and sombre manner that at least finds an element of hope and positivity for its protagonist.
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