12/12 ForReel Score | 5 Stars

If there were such a thing as an idyllic childhood friendship, the one Leo and Rémi have in the beginning of Close would be it. In this phase of their friendship, the two thirteen year old boys are practically inseparable and nurture a connection with each other that is best described as pure, sincere, and effortless. The boys spend their days on adventures, whether they’re sprinting through fields of flowers or strategizing their escape plan from the onset of imaginary foes. And they spend their nights having sleepovers, sharing a bed at each other’s homes. They’re in the same class at school and they support each other’s hobbies. They’re allowed to be kids and let their friendship flourish - so much so that they seem to instinctively know each other. When Rémi can't fall asleep, Leo knows how to tell a story that lulls him into a peaceful slumber.

It’s this innocent affection that Leo and Rémi have for one another that makes the first act of Close so spellbinding to watch. Their relationship lives in this beautifully undefinable state - far more intimate than typical male friendships are, but not sexually inclined as to consider it a romantic relationship as far as we can tell. Leo, in fact, is quick to set the record straight when classmates challenge the nature of their relationship, blatantly asserting that he and Rémi are not a couple, but just really close friends.

Unfortunately, that is where the bliss of Leo and Rémi’s rapturous relationship begins to wane and the conflict in Close escallates. The questioning of their sexualities and the judgment of their schoolmates causes Leo to gradually introduce new boundaries to his friendship with Rémi. This new dynamic, however, strains their relationship and ultimately leads to an event that is difficult to process.

What director and co-writer Lukas Dhont taps into with this story is that pivotal point in adolescence when peer pressure begins to influence behavior; when what peers think and say has a much larger effect on how teens view themselves, and in turn, conduct themselves to fit into that peer group. Although Close could have much to say about burgeoning sexuality, school bullying, and toxic masculinity, the film stays focused on Leo’s perspective of the world as he delicately navigates redefining his closeness with Rémi, then eventually grapples with the consequences of that decision.

The narrative choice to avoid sharing too much about Rémi's side of the story poignantly imposes onto the audience a similar disillusionment that the characters in the film are forced to grapple with. There are questions we as viewers are stuck mulling over as the events of the film unfold. What is really going on between Leo and Rémi? Is there more to their friendship that’s being suppressed? The boys’ sexualities are never explicitly disclosed, but Close does leave open the notion that perhaps Rémi (and maybe Leo as well) may have had some level of unspoken romantic interest in the other. These aspects of this story and these characters, for the better in my opinion, are left up to the audience to fill in the gaps on. Because what Close does so well is convey the essential aspects of this story without feeling the need to over expose the inner workings of their motivations or belabor the psychoanalysis of kids coming of age.

So yes, there is some guesswork to be done in understanding Leo and Rémi if you choose to invest your attention enough into such details. But those who watch Close and find themselves caught up on the ambiguity of Leo and Rémi's sexualities - making the point of whether one or both of them were in fact growing into same-sex romantic desires the ultimate question in need of answering - may be thinking too small about the film as a whole. Demanding clarity on this is an objective that seems no more virtuous than the schoolmates who toppled the initial domino of this story in the first place. Close offers a much bigger picture about the value of loved ones in one’s life at such an impressionable age for audiences to internalize.

After all, the film doesn't confine its depictions of close relationships just to the two boys. Leo spends much of the film leaning heavily into other crucial relationships, like the one he has with Rémi’s mother, Sophie, played by Émilie Dequenne, who Leo visits often and who he seems to feel a great sense of responsibility to. Cinematographer and repeat collaborator Frank van den Eeden (Eeden served as cinematographer on Dhont’s 2018 Camera d’Or winner, Girl) makes you feel this attachment in multiple scenes when Leo is staring at Sophie from a distance with the camera positioned almost directly in line with his gaze. And then, there’s Leo’s relationship with his brother, which like his relationship with Rémi, is subject to playing, wrestling, holding, and openness to sensitive emotions - a source of endearing comfort in both the happiest and most somber moments in the film.

For the score in Close, Dhont taps another former collaborator, Valentin Hadjadj - his go-to composer who has been a part of his short film projects L'Infini and Our Nature as well as Girl also. Here in Close, Hadjadj’s orchestral talents manifest in sequences featuring school concerts. These scenes utilize this setting to invigorate the sentimentality of that moment. But Hadjadj’s string-filled score also packs a bittersweet punch at some of the more emotionally meditative moments in the film, including in the film's deeply affecting finale.

But ultimately, it’s the performances from Close’s young actors Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele that endows Close with the real heartrending power that the film possesses. There is a chemistry between the two that makes their friendship believable and fetching, even at points in the story when it’s turbulent. Buying into the emotionality of Close relies heavily on buying into their friendship, and Dambrine and De Waele go all in on conveying the closeness of the characters and the distress of the disheartening divide they endure.

Upon writing this review, I find myself simultaneously eager for the opportunity to rewatch Close and reluctant to subject myself again to the discimination of what I would call a depiction of the perfect friendship. The story in Close is bold, but not for sensationalistic purposes or to simply get an emotional rise out of the audience. There’s authenticity and an earnestness in every aspect of the film. Something is special about Close, elevating it above the majority of other love-themed, tear-jerking films. Something, perhaps, as undefinable as that special relationship between Leo and Rémi itself.

VIFF 2022 | MOVIE REVIEW: "Close"; An Endearing and Heartbreaking Sophomore Feature for Director Lukas Dhont