Crying Lovers / Does bad screen crying bother you, and did the actor improve later?

**Posted by PhoebeOnThePhone** January 12, 2022 5:33 pm

It bothers me and makes me cringe. I have a bit of a hate-on for Tobey Maguire for crying so terribly in Spider-Man (in 1 and 3--that shit was allowed to happen more than once!), and being so memorably awful that his stupid bad unconvincing cryface is an oft-used gif.
As far as I know, he only cried in those, and has never learned to do better.
(Does anyone know if Tobey has weighed in on the memefication of his crying? I know James van der Beek and Joshua Jackson have weighed in on James' famous-but-adequately-acted cryface gif from Dawson's Creek.)

Keanu Reeves has also cried quite terribly. He's cried five times onscreen that I know of, and it grieves me to say this but three of them are terrible (three, he's got three to Tobey's one) and make me cringe. Crying-wise, he was terrible in Dracula and terrible in Devil's Advocate and terrible in Matrix 3.
However, sometime between Matrix 3 and Lake House, he had learned to cry properly because his scenes in The Lake House and John Wick were both good. (Also, his bad cryface didn't make it to meme status, and to my eyes, wayyyyyy better looking than Tobey. I do not have any kind of hate-on for Keanu.)

Last edited by PhoebeOnThePhone (January 15, 2022 2:45 pm)

**Posted by caircair** January 13, 2022 2:34 am

Bad screen crying is dreadful -- it takes me right out of my comfort zone and I get all clinical, trying to determine just *what* is wrong with the crying. In other words, I stop enjoying the moment and turn into an acting critic.

My baseline is just how "realistic" the crying is, both the sounds and the expression. "Dry" crying automatically loses points -- If someone is going to cry, I want to see tears, goddam it!!

**Posted by reptongeek** January 13, 2022 1:55 pm

I remember when Isla Fisher was in Home and Away, she did her fair share of dry crying too

I'm of the same mind, I want to see tears!

**Posted by Amans lacrimae** January 13, 2022 2:20 pm

I agree with reptongeek, if a girl is crying (I am not into male tears) I NEED to see at least a tear from each eye streaking her cheeks. I hate when they wipe the tears before they roll down their cheeks. On the other hand, I love when someone else wipes the tears from her cheeks.

**Posted by Ella** January 14, 2022 3:08 am

Yes,bad fake looking crying also makes me cringe. If someone is dry crying I wish they would just go ahead and cover their face. At least that way, as long as the noises are convincing, the scene might be salvageable

**Posted by PhoebeOnThePhone** January 15, 2022 3:17 pm

caircair wrote:
Bad screen crying is dreadful -- it takes me right out of my comfort zone and I get all clinical, trying to determine just *what* is wrong with the crying. In other words, I stop enjoying the moment and turn into an acting critic.

My baseline is just how "realistic" the crying is, both the sounds and the expression. "Dry" crying automatically loses points -- If someone is going to cry, I want to see tears, goddam it!!

That's interesting--I find it much easier to articulate what's good about a good crying performance. Any attempt I make at figuring out WHY Tobey's crying is so bad inevitably devolves into 'my god, ugly cryfaces DO NOT LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!', but I can always point out elements I like in good scenes.

Visible tears gets more points in my book as well. To me, it's got to either have visible tears on the face, or audible sobs--there's got to be some kind of unequivocal loss of control to count as crying. Eyes full of tears that never spill don't count as shedding tears to me. I describe that as teary or tearful or tearing up, and it is sad and pretty, but in my book it's not quite there.

There is that deleted scene from Don't Breathe where a guy (Dylan Minnette, who's had a lot of practice at crying on Thirteen Reasons Why) leaves a voicemail for his dad. This scene is interesting because while it technically is 'dry' crying until the very end when a tear is visible in his eyelashes, he's still obviously trying so hard and failing to not cry. He can barely control his voice enough to get half-intelligible words out, can't quite fully suppress the sobs, and his voice and noises just sound crying-wet, if that makes sense.
This was deleted from the final cut! I'm so glad it's available online. This is one of my favorite scenes. A few years ago I'd have never thought I'd ever say that about anything from Dylan Minnette. His face just reminded me too much of his character on LOST who I found tiresome, but since coming here and discovering how good of a crier he is, I've changed my mind.