Composite Score: 81.97

Starring: Eden Dambrine, Gustave De Waele, Émilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker, Igor van Dessel, Kevin Janssens, Marc Weiss, and Léon Bataille

Director: Lukas Dhont

Writers: Lukas Dhont and Angelo Tijssens

Genres: Drama, Coming of Age

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide and brief strong language

Box Office: $5.03 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Close is Lukas Dhont’s film about the friendship between two Belgian boys around the age of thirteen and its unintentional unraveling. The film was nominated for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, representing the nation of Belgium. It features Eden Dambrine and Gustave De Waele as the two teens, Leo and Remi, alongside Émilie Dequenne as Remi’s mother Sophie. The film’s exploration of friendship, loneliness, and adolescence along with its uniquely focused perspective have made it into an instant classic, worthy of the slew of critical acclaim it has already received.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                Audiences who have trauma associated with suicide should be warned that suicide and the grief associated with it feature as central themes to the film’s plot. The film does not take the approach of some “edgier” projects by portraying suicide or suicide attempts on-screen, but the topic is unavoidable when watching this film. If that is something too difficult for you to engage with, you should probably wait to watch Close until you are in a healthier headspace.

                Other than that, the main gripe some audiences will inevitably have with Close is its intentional ambiguity. So much of its content is left unsaid, leaving much to the expressions of Leo and the audience’s impressions of what they do see. Some viewers will certainly revel in the film’s open-to-interpretation nature. Others might find this approach a bit more frustrating. Both camps are understandable, but if you fall into the latter, Close might be a film you can get away with skipping without missing much.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                If you fall into the former camp and are fine with a little ambiguity in the details of a film, Close is the film for you. By not diving into so many of the details on the periphery of the film’s story, it becomes a far more universal narrative, relating to a wider audience than it otherwise might. Are Leo and Remi heterosexual or not? Is only one of them or the other? What method of suicide occurred? What exactly do Leo’s parents do? Why has Leo decided to start playing hockey? All these questions and more are left either explicitly or implicitly unanswered by the film because, ultimately, they are unimportant to the film’s story about friendship, loneliness, and life as a young teenager. The audience is allowed to answer these questions for themselves, if they wish, or to leave them unanswered. Either way, the devastating look at Leo’s friendship with Remi and the way that he comes of age over the course of the school year remains a fairly universal one, easy to associate with and connect with.

                Part of what makes that connection so easy is Dhont’s decision to focus almost the entirety of the camera work on the character of Leo. Over the film’s entire run-time there are probably no more than fifteen shots that do not contain the character of Leo, and most of those exist to show the audience what Leo is looking at. Newcomer Eden Dambrine is given the tall task of being basically the film’s only focal point as an adolescent actor, playing a thirteen-year-old. He rises to it wonderfully, lending the film a truly haunting look at the impact of friendship and the absence thereof can have on a young person. His performance as Leo is so riveting that it makes the camera’s refusal to turn away from him make perfect sense – he captures the audience’s attention with the simplest of shifts in facial expression and keeps them hooked as he matures throughout his story. It’s a joy to watch even if the story brings you down at points.

                In focusing the film’s entire narrative on Leo and Leo’s perspective, Dhont turns Close into an instant masterpiece, exploring friendship, loss, and adolescence in easily relatable fashion, making a film that deserves a spot among the greats. Some of the film’s subject matter might keep it off of your watchlist for the time being, but this is an undeniably great film, worth checking out if you haven’t yet. It is currently available to purchase on most streaming services and can still be found in some theaters and is set to hit streaming in mid-April if you’d rather wait for then to check it out.