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In 1962, Paul Connolly was located in East London. His childhood after the abandonment from his mother was spent in St Leonards Children’s Home located in Hornchurch, Essex. Instead of providing love, safety, and care, St Leonard’s was an abode of severe physical, mental, and sexual abuse to all the children in its care. The home was shut down in 1984, but the children of St Leonard’s suffered silently as the horrifying secrets were not revealed until the mid-1990s. Following Paul Connolly’s first book titled, Against All Odds, Steve Crowhurst adapted it into a play, Big Boys Don’t Cry. The play is directed by Steve Crowhurst and sheds light on the harrowing challenges of institutional abuse through the perspective of a man, who hides the invisible PTSD of his past.
Michael Socha’s performance, engulfed by the agony, terror, and uncertainty of a man who believes he is absolute trash, is astonishing. Paul’s memories remain locked up as he wrestles with the attempts to suppress the anxiety and terror that came with his youth. Since his teenage years, Paul’s life after St Leonard’s has consisted of an endless cycle of violence. All of the pain, anger, and hurt experienced were never addressed, and only served to fuel his violent outbursts. With the newfound knowledge of a police investigation surrounding the abuse of children at St Leonard’s, his unending spiral of violence is interrupted. Paul’s ghosts return and this time, they cannot be silenced. With the help of his new girlfriend ZoĂ«, he begins facing the truth for the first time in his life.
While adult characters are portrayed by Socha and Tapper, the brutal and heartbreaking truth that these children suffered at the hands of St Leonard’s is weaved through the film in scale through flashbacks. In these heartbreaking glimpses, young Paul is played by Mitchell Norman and is flawlessly captured by Joshua Coombes as his childhood friend, Liam. Paul and Liam’s unending intensity and maturity are bound to leave the audience in shock, as they are expected to carry the whole picture in their young arms.
Over the years, numerous films and limited series have sought to depict the systemic abuse that is allowed to thrive within children’s homes and residential schools. The Boys of St. Vincent (1992) attempted to depict abuses taking place at Mount Cashel Orphanage in the 70s St. John’s Newfoundland, including the systematic abuse of children by the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time, Song For A Raggy Boy, which is based on the book by Patrick Galvin, dealt with sexual violence and domination in a reformatory school in the 1930s. Big Boys Don’t Cry does not really have the depth or St. Vincent and Raggy Boy has because of the grime British crime drama style and it being of a shorter length. Therefore, we must assume that there is more depth in Connolly’s story that has not been uncovered.
Kara Crowhurst’s film might not have the most complex structure, but her documentary tackles institutional abuse with grit and nuance. Unlike St. Vincent, Crowhurst’s documentary doesn’t entirely explore the neglect of the local government and addresses the real-life structures that deeply perpetuated abuse. Overall, there is an unsettling feeling that houses like St. Leonard’s operated outside the spotlight, interring children who were silenced. Expanding on these points could have enabled Big Boys Don’t Cry to further develop its premier performances, instead of shying away from the issues which enabled deep-rooted systemic abuse to go unchallenged. At its heart, Connolly’s story is one of hope, courage, and rebirth. In my wish, I am hoping that Big Boys Don’t Cry does what Paul did in his story, against all odds, which was De Mull’s birth a window for the living survivors of historical abuse to come forward with their experiences.
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