Growing up Before You’re Ready

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MOVIE REVIEWS
Big Girls Don't Cry
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Genre: Drama, Coming-of-Age
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: Paloma Schneideman
Writer: Paloma Schneideman
Cast: Ani Palmer, Rain Spencer, Noah Taylor, Beatrix Rain Wolfe, Ngataitangirua Hita, Sophia Kirkwood Smith, Tara Canton
Where to Watch: coming to select theaters October 9, 2026

RAVING REVIEW: Being fourteen is miserable in ways that become strangely difficult to explain once you're no longer fourteen. You're old enough to recognize the people you want to become, young enough to misunderstand almost everything about how they got there, and desperate enough for acceptance that copying somebody else's clothes, attitude, interests, or sexuality can temporarily seem like the same thing as discovering your own. BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY remembers that uncomfortable middle ground with remarkable clarity, and it doesn't clean up the embarrassing parts just because its protagonist is someone we're meant to care about.

Sid Bookman doesn't always make herself easy to like. That's essential to Ani Palmer's terrific performance because Sid isn't being presented as an unusually enlightened teenager waiting for everyone else to catch up with her. She lies. She pushes people away. She adopts personalities depending on who's standing in front of her. She makes decisions that have you silently begging her to stop, then doubles down because backing away would mean admitting she never knew what she was doing in the first place.

Writer-director Paloma Schneideman understands that contradiction and doesn't punish Sid for it. BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY takes place in rural New Zealand during the summer of 2006, but this isn't one of those period movies constantly nudging you with recognizable products and music until you acknowledge the nostalgia. Flip phones, MSN Messenger, chunky computers, and mid-2000s fashion are certainly everywhere. Yet, they establish the limits of Sid's world instead of becoming jokes about how funny everything looked twenty years ago.

The internet matters because it was a different version of being online. It offered Sid glimpses of people, sexuality, and lifestyles she couldn't easily encounter around her, but there was considerably less guidance about what any of it meant. She can access information without necessarily having anyone trustworthy to help her process it. That distinction gives the 2006 setting a purpose far beyond reminding millennials how long ago their teenage years suddenly were.

Sid is surrounded by examples of adulthood that she misunderstands almost as soon as she encounters them. Her father, Leo (Noah Taylor), struggles through his own life and can't give her the attention she needs. Older teenagers appear confident largely because Sid sees them from below, while her friendship with Lana provides another opportunity to imitate someone whose approval suddenly seems incredibly important. Sid believes she can reach adulthood by collecting enough of its outward signs. Then Freya arrives.

Rain Spencer plays Freya with exactly the quality the role needs. She's older, American, confident, and seemingly comfortable with herself, which means Sid immediately sees everything she wishes she already was. Spencer also makes Freya genuinely warm, preventing her from becoming another seductive older figure placed into a coming-of-age story solely to trigger an awakening. Sid's attraction is real, but so is her fascination with the freedom Freya seems to represent.

The distinction between wanting someone and wanting to be them becomes wonderfully blurry. Sid hasn't developed the language to separate attraction, admiration, and envy, so BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY doesn't separate them for her. Schneideman lets those feelings overlap, allowing Sid's sexuality to emerge through glances, awkward interactions, and increasingly obvious behavior without forcing her into a scene where she suddenly understands herself perfectly.

That makes the queer element feel especially natural. Sid isn't moving through a carefully organized process of discovery where each experience produces another answer. She barely understands the questions. There's an honesty in letting her attraction to women exist alongside everything else she's trying to figure out, especially in a time and place when finding someone who could help her understand those feelings wasn't as simple as opening an app and searching for a community.

Palmer carries practically all of this without making Sid's confusion feel performed for the audience. Much of her work happens when she's watching somebody else. You can almost see Sid studying how people talk, how they stand, and what gets their attention before deciding which pieces she can borrow. It's an exceptional debut because Palmer never seems concerned with keeping Sid sympathetic. The mistakes are ugly, selfish, and painfully believable.

Schneideman surrounds her with performers who understand the same natural approach. Noah Taylor could easily turn Leo into the neglectful father the audience simply resents, but there are flashes of affection and disappointment that complicate him. He isn't giving Sid what she needs, yet Taylor makes it clear that Leo hasn't figured out his own life well enough to recognize everything his daughter is quietly asking him for.

The movie is also unusually good at showing class without turning it into an announcement. Sid watches wealthier seasonal visitors arrive in the area and seems to understand instinctively that they belong to a version of life she doesn't. Clothes, houses, parties, and confidence become intertwined until fitting in with certain people feels like proof that she has escaped something. Schneideman lets that insecurity influence Sid's choices without having her explain it.

Maria Inés Manchego's cinematography reinforces those differences beautifully. Sid's home feels enclosed and dimmer, while the spaces she associates with possibility often feel exposed to sunlight and open air. That contrast never becomes too obvious, but it helps explain why Sid is constantly drawn outward even when the places she's moving toward aren't particularly safe.

BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY does stumble when some of its supporting relationships are asked to carry more emotional importance than they've been given room to develop. Sid's friendship with Tia, for example, communicates another piece of what Sid sacrifices while chasing validation, but I would've liked more time with that relationship before it begins slipping away. A few characters sometimes feel more important to Sid's development than they do as people existing outside of it.

Familiarity also underlies the specificity. We've watched teenagers drink too much, lie to their parents, chase older kids, experiment sexually, and discover that the people they idolized aren't nearly as put together as expected. Schneideman isn't reinventing coming-of-age storytelling, and there are moments when you can recognize where Sid is heading before she gets there. The difference is how long the movie lets those familiar experiences remain uncomfortable.

That becomes increasingly important as Sid pushes herself into situations she's emotionally unprepared to handle. Schneideman doesn't turn those moments into lessons delivered directly to the audience, nor does she completely rescue Sid from the consequences of trying to perform adulthood. The movie understands something teenagers rarely do: looking older, acting older, and being treated as older don't magically give you the ability to deal with what comes afterward.

By the time BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY reaches its final stretch, the title has taken on considerably more weight. Sid spends so much of the movie trying to convince everyone around her that she doesn't need protecting that admitting she does becomes its own form of growth. There isn't a magical transformation waiting on the other side, because becoming an adult isn't something that happens during one wild summer, no matter how badly a fourteen-year-old wants it to.

That's why the movie's quieter moments stay with me more than its biggest ones. Schneideman remembers how enormous tiny humiliations felt at that age, how desperately acceptance could be confused with affection, and how easy it was to believe everyone else had been given instructions you somehow missed. BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY earns its 4 out of 5 by trusting that confusion instead of trying to organize it neatly. At the same time, Ani Palmer delivers the kind of debut performance that makes Sid's mistakes painful precisely because they feel so recognizably human.

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[photo courtesy of BLUE FOX ENTERTAINMENT]

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