“I want to become anyone except myself.” -- Mary and Max
What occupies the mind of a preadolescent girl at fourteen? For Sid Bookman (Ani Palmer), it is a liminal period marked by an unexamined sensitivity to changes in both body and psyche. New Zealand filmmaker Paloma Schneideman’s latest work, Big Girls Don’t Cry, offers an intimate, quietly piercing coming-of-age story that speaks to stirring curiosity and confusion in puberty. It is nothing less than a heartfelt reflection on the uneasy process of being a “qualified” grown-up.
Living in a small town in New Zealand, Sid resides with her mellow older sister Adele (Tara Canton), a partygoer closely tied to a lively circle of friends. She forms a reliable bond with Tia (Ngataitangirua Hita), a girl from her neighbourhood, though the latter appears to be more inhibited than fiery.
Sid’s father, Leo (Noah Taylor) -- bald and bad-tempered -- is a perceptibly ADHD-afflicted man who struggles to hold on to his dream of becoming an artist while raising a family alone. During the summer break, Sid is granted a brief opportunity to encounter new people and perhaps, new versions of herself.
Inspired by Fergie’s 2006 song of the same title, Big Girls Don’t Cry is set in that very year, a time when the internet had not yet evolved into the pervasively toxic force it is today (a sharp contrast to the recent TV series hit Adolescence). It is an earlier age, when people still used chunky mobile phones and curved-screen desktop computers. Sid manages to log into Diggy’s (Poroaki Merritt-McDonald) live messenger account, brother of Tia, and tentatively starts an online chat with the sultry gal Lana (Beatrix Rain Wolfe) in the window, while disguised as Diggy himself.
When Sid catches a ride with Adele and her sister’s visiting friend Freya (Rain Spencer) for a beach outing, she encounters Lana and her best friend Stevie (Sophia Kirkwood Smith) in person. Offering them beer as a gesture of goodwill, Sid attempts to insert herself into their orbit.
Afterwards, she anxiously awaits messages from the pair, aware that such a response would signal acceptance into their squad. Gradually, she gets in with them, crosses paths with a posse of playboys, absorbs their cheeky glow, and begins experimenting with behaviours deemed “cool” from a teenage perspective.
This becomes her way of resisting her self-perceived ordinariness, and a circuitous means of discovering her own identity through others. She playfully sexts to attract attention, awkwardly pierces her navel, drinks beer until she can barely stay awake, smokes weed as though she has control over it, and lies to friends about having had sexual experiences. As for her, these acts function as proof that she is a recognised, formative “adult,” one who does not deserve ridicule or neglect.
From the outset, Sid’s approach to befriending appears woven through with small lies. Yet these fabrications stem less from malice than from a lack of security. Or more accurately, a lack of confidence.
Sid may be one of the most unremarkable girls at a party, the type who easily becomes the odd one out. Unlike the confident blondes (like Freya) who can either move effortlessly to music or instinctively master the art of flirting, Sid drifts at the margins, informed by emotional uncertainty, subtle envy, and brittle audacity. It is precisely this ordinariness that renders her so accessible to the viewers.
Palmer delivers the role with remarkable restraint. Her performance lingers on hesitant gestures and delayed reactions, embodying a sense of alienation that only exacerbates Sid’s inferiority complex. To supplement such characteristics, cinematographer Maria Inés Manchego employs shallow depth of field and handheld camerawork, creating a palpable sense of breath and immediacy that captures youthful energy and volatility. Ethereal trance music further amplifies this atmosphere, building up the angst and urge reserved in Palmer’s portrayal of Sid.
“Big girls don’t cry” sounds like a phrase of adult consolation, but it also stands as testimony to growth achieved through pain. Through Sid’s imitation and observation, the film grapples with a universal knot familiar to many young people: how to exactly understand one’s feelings, how to fairly define one’s identity, and how to comfortably articulate one’s desire.
Inflected with connotational queer affection, Big Girls Don’t Cry stings with its fine-grained depiction of a girl who assimilates the world -- and herself -- only through the other.
The film premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.