Especially as children, we love purely and unconditionally. Love can be an expression that extends not just to our families but to our closest friends, since the psychological boundaries have not yet been put into place that would force us to make a distinction between the two. In doing research for his second film, Close, director Lukas Dhont referenced a study conducted by New York psychologist Niobe Way, who interviewed 150 13-year-old boys after following their lives for a span of five years. “When… they talk about their friends, they express it like it’s love stories” Dhont says, “They dare to use the word ‘love’ about each other in the most beautiful, tender way.” This is not how we often see male adolescence portrayed in media. Camaraderie, perhaps, “bromance,” or even competition. But not love. Close is a film that seeks to explore that angle, tackling the effects of toxic masculinity head on. For about a half an hour, it does so with a grace and honesty not often seen in contemporary cinema.
The film is nominated for Best International Feature at the 2023 Academy Awards, and it’s initially easy to see why. The first 30 to 45 minutes of Close are nothing short of excellent. For a while, we follow the exploits of 13-year-old best friends Léo (Eden Dambrine, in his debut performance) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele, also a newcomer), enjoying the final spoils of summer before they begin a new school year. In a blissful opening scene, they chase each other through a lush field of multicolored flowers, owned and cultivated by Léo’s family. Later, they sleep over at Rémi’s, a common occurrence. Lying in the grass outside Rémi’s country house, his mother, Sophie (Émilie Dequenne) refers to Léo as her “son of the heart.” It’s a friendship that bonds not only the boys but their parents, like a second family.
Frank van den Eeden’s intimate and colorful cinematography employs extended tracking shots and vibrant handheld camerawork to express the emotional closeness between Léo and Rémi. If it wasn’t obvious from the film’s title, “close” is the key word here. What does it mean to be “close,” and how do we define the nature of their connection? On the first day of school, a trio of girls question their relationship, saying it’s obvious that the boys are a couple. Léo vehemently denies this; they’re not a couple, they’re “like brothers.”
Dhont never defines the pair’s relationship, so it’s up the viewer to infer its nature based on what’s shown. When sleeping over, the two often sleep in the same bed, lean their heads on each other’s shoulders or sleep on each other’s stomachs. But is this not also what some friends, or indeed brothers do? That a viewer might automatically assign a romantic label onto this relationship is exactly the film’s point. They care for each other purely and deeply, but it’s not long before the incessant labeling by their peers begins to poison that connection. Léo abruptly pulls away, and the sensitive Rémi is left confused and heartbroken.
The official marketing for Close has already spoiled the film’s brutally tragic midway turn, which heavily changes the tone. It’s clearly building up to this, but when the moment actually arrives, the result is a manipulative contrivance. Never has a film so obviously wanted to make the viewer to cry, and yet that insistence on generating waterworks is exactly what makes the second half ineffective compared to the first. The issue isn’t that Close takes a dark turn, but that Dhont’s script, co-written with Angelo Tijssens, never successfully justifies these tragic events as earned or even legible from what’s been established. The takeaway we’re supposed to have from these characters dramatic wrestling with inexplicable tragedy, or how it connects to the film’s main theme of intimate male friendship, is never fully clarified. The result feels emotionally cheap.
That’s hardly the actors fault, though. Along with Frankie Corio’s stunning performance in last year’s Aftersun, Eden Dembrine’s turn as Léo is one of the most impressive child debuts in recent memory. It’s a sensitive and complex performance that’s largely conveyed through physical mannerisms and gesture. Dembrine’s eyes do a lot of the talking, and his and Waele’s chemistry feels organic and genuine. The young actor is a remarkable find, and one can hope he will continue acting in the future. Dequenne is also enormously effective as Sophie, selling even the film’s least convincing moments with a devastating emotional clarity and pathos.
The musical score by Valentin Hadjadj is also memorable, underlying Eeden’s camerawork with ruminative poeticism. These excellent qualities make it somewhat easy to see past the film’s troubling narrative flaws – to a point. As hard as Dhont pulls for emotional grandiosity, the best moments are the subtler ones, where he trusts the viewer to be invested in this relationship without being manipulated into doing so. These are scenes such as when Léo intently watches Rémi perform in a musical recital, or when, admittedly not so subtly, they break apart at a fork in the road while biking home from school. The core narrative at play in Close is important and vital. These specific portrayals of childhood friendship and likely platonic love should be seen, and normalized, in cinema more often. It’s a shame that Dhont ultimately loses the thread. Close is a good movie, just not the great one it’s straining so hard to be.
Photo courtesy of A24
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