YMMV / The Crying Game

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Jim Broadbent has two scenes as the pub bartender, but he makes a definite impression.
• Fair for Its Day: The film is still questioned for its vagueness as to the nature of Dil's gender, whether she's a transgender woman or just a gay male drag queen who prefers female pronouns.^note It's strongly implied she's the former, since she wants no part of her former masculinity; even the most effeminate drag queens usually identify as male outside of their drag persona. However, it very nicely avoids the too-frequent "trap" stereotype often associated with trans people and characters by framing the reveal that she has a penis as nothing more than an awkward misunderstanding, rather than a deception, and otherwise treats it as a non-issue once Fergus gets over his initial shock. As worldly as Fergus seems to be, he's socially inexperienced and very naive.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The film's UK response was lukewarm, considering it "just another IRA drama". However, the Plot Twist made it a major artistic hit in America, which was fascinated by the gender identity politics angle of the film. (The fact that it had Forest Whitaker, a popular actor in the United States, didn't hurt.)
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Given that the film is more famous for its plot twist than anything else, Dil's line right after The Reveal almost comes across as Lampshade Hanging directed at the audience.
  Dil: You did know, didn't you?
• Ho Yay: Between Jody and Fergus, further complicating an already complicated Love Dodecahedron. Jody even remarks that Fergus is "the handsome one" of the kidnappers. Not to mention all those dreams Fergus has of Jody in his white uniform. In the end he makes Dil use that same white uniform, which can be seen with a lot of different interpretations.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Jody dies. This is the set up for the entire plot.
  • The Reveal has been the subject of so many parodies and jokes that even people who have never seen the movie know the twist: Dil has a penis, and specifically how Fergus finds that out.
• Nausea Fuel: In-Universe, The Reveal, for Fergus. The scene of his reaction afterward has also been parodied, most famously in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
• Retroactive Recognition: Jane is played by Andrée Bernard, who would later be best known for playing Liz Burton in Hollyoaks.
• Spiritual Successor: To Jordan's earlier films Mona Lisa and The Miracle, which are also about men (or in the case of The Miracle, a teenage boy) falling in love with women who turn out to be not what they seem.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Fergus wasn't the only one fooled by Dil when the film came out.
• The Woobie:
  • Dil. And HOW. That poor hairdresser puts up with a lot. Her boyfriend gets killed, she has to put up with a creepy male stalker, faces some discrimination from others due to being transgender, Fergus runs away after discovering her secret (though he does come back to her), and she almost contemplates suicide after killing Jude, only for Fergus to take the rap for her and have her boyfriend go to prison for her.

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