So much for real life. The cinema is another story.
Sitting in a darkened auditorium, boys do cry. Perhaps because we bottle it up so much on a daily basis and perhaps because no one is looking (we hope) and perhaps because, occasionally, movies can be moving without manipulating, the cinema is where the majority of masculine tears are Over the next few pages, in a veritable "Boohoo's Who", we'll see what gets the tear ducts flowing - whether it be dying dogs, poorly kestrels, multiple-monikered Roman slaves, a man coming back to life at Christmas or even exploding sharks. Personally, I'm not the prince of wails, but I've certainly cried far more in the cinema than I have anywhere else in my life. From my own experience, I'd recommend the moment in Midnight Run when Robert De Niro sees his estranged daughter for the first time in years while reliving a row with her mother. Four words - "You got so big" - thrown into the void of aching loss and filled with paternal love