Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) are two inseparable friends. When Leo is not working on the family flower farm and Rémi is not practicing the oboe, the two boys can often be found in the bunker playing knights, racing their bikes down the country roads, or just lazing about one another’s houses as if they were brothers. When summer ends, the boys are excited that they have been placed into the same freshman class at their new school, but their relationship quickly sparks rumors amongst the other kids that they are perhaps in a relationship together. This speculation causes Leo to begin stepping away from the friendship as Rémi sinks into a depression at the loss of his best friend. 

Premiering at Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize, Close was directed by Lukas Dhont from a script he co-wrote with Angelo Tijssens. It was picked up for distribution in the States by A24 who gave the 104-minute film a punishingly limited theatrical release even after it was submitted by Belgium and nominated by the Academy for Best International Feature. Despite the accolades, the film was marred in some controversy, claiming that the film’s queer sub/text was inappropriate, and while Dhont has spoken on the queer reading of the film, as presented it is still very much a film about two friends who drift apart and that certain pundits are so quick to decry “grooming” or “indoctrination,” is to miss the entire focus of the film itself; that is, an examination how tenderness fits into the modern idea of masculinity. Close remains inherently sexless and except for the inciting accusation that Leo and Rémi are dating, there is no further discussion of these two boys’ orientation which makes the film such a fascinating piece as intimacy between males is almost always intertwined with stories about sexuality. 

There are plenty of queer coming-of-age stories – Heartstone (2017) by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson is a fantastic one – that deal with blossoming feelings head-on, and then there are some like Enrico Casarosa’s Luca (2021) which address the alienation felt when discovering one’s identity in a more metaphorical way. Dhont is challenging his audience with something new, asking them to examine the heartbreak and grief from a friendship cut short and how are men supposed to process these feelings when society, overwhelmingly, tells them to internalize them and move forward. Martin McDonagh examines a similar breakdown in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) when one half of a pair of best friends suddenly decided to end the relationship leaving the other with nowhere to turn to in his state of grief, anger, and confusion. Dhont is not alone in studying masculinity this year, consequently enough, Sarah Polley gives Ben Whishaw a short speech towards the end of Women Talking (2022) that describes the “reckless urges, physical exuberance, [and] intense curiosity” that boys this age often experience amongst their peer group resulting in a dynamic full of “unbridled emotion, including deep tenderness and empathy” before they are taught that only boys have feelings, but men are stoic and solid. Unwavering. We know this to be untrue, and dangerous even, as Dhont cites that the troubling statistic that the rate of suicide in young men of this age is four times that of women in the same demographic was a driving force in the conceptualization of this film.  

With that being said, to discuss the themes and topics of Close in any serious way and not reference Rémi’s death by suicide would be nearly impossible. Occurring off-screen at around the halfway point, the film takes a sudden and drastic tonal shift. Understandably, some audiences may find themselves frustrated by this development, the immediacy of it all, the urgency of it all, but in this way, the film reflects the way we process tragedies in our own lives; often without warning, understating, or immediate explanation. We, therefore, are processing our own grief over Rémi’s death along with Leo and the two families. If there is a critique to be made, it can be argued that the script is a little unbalanced in favor of Leo, turning Rémi into a vehicle for his friend to access grief and emotion, but even entering into that mindset knowing it is a bad faith argument, the logic feels shaky and weak at best. Close is a film that is always moving forward in time as emotions evolve, and Leo never gets the full sense of closure or reconciliation with Rémi, as is often the case when faced with such a sudden loss. 

Dhont, both respectfully and smartly, does not revel in or sensationalize Rémi’s death, nor does he give audiences flashbacks or cut away to Rémi’s point of view during his turmoil. It is a bold choice given the cinematic and cathartic value of showing these scenes, but while De Waele is not present on screen for the second half of the film, Rémi’s presence is still strongly felt in the way Dhont and cinematographer Frank van den Eeden rely on repetition to emphasize his absence. The film closes largely in the way it began, Leo is in the bunker, running through the fields of flowers, but Rémi is no longer beside him. In the final shot, Leo turns back to look for his friend – the only way for him to move forward is by recognizing what has happened and allowing it to exist alongside him. 

At the core of the film is the relationship between Leo and Rémi, and after an extensive casting process led by Sebastian Moradiellos, Dambrine and De Waele were the clear embodiment of the kind of kinship Dhont was looking to study. Both first-time actors, Dhont led the boys through an extended rehearsal process so that they could become acclimated to working on a film set and all that entails – the camera, the crew, the equipment – while not having to also deal with the stress of tapping into these deeper emotions for the first time. The result is a shockingly natural and uninhibited performance from both young men displaying a platonic intimacy not often seen on film. There is no rigidity in their performances, nor is Dhont’s direction visible in the performances as can often happen with young actors seeking to mime an action or emotion conveyed to them. Dambrine and De Waele appear to flow through the space and time of the film while Dhont and his crew simply observe. The performances are aided by the pools of glistening light as well as Valentin Hadjadj’s swelling score, but the craft does not overtake the actors and they work together in tandem to create, when things are happy, a dream-like state of bliss, and when things are sad, the same world and environment around them though it is turned much colder, harsher, and emptier. 

We see flashes of this cold world in the first half as Leo begins to distance himself from his friend at the risk of appearing queer, but there is still a care there that ends up being more damaging in that he tries to shelter Rémi from his reasoning at the risk of upsetting the boy. Often seen through the background, De Waele becomes more reserved with each painful day apart from his friend. In addition, the boy is always seen to be a little self-critical of himself as evidenced by how he shakes his head in disgust when there is a slip-up in his oboe performance that only he is aware of. With darker hair, and his bedroom walls painted in a bold red, Rémi is designed and presented to have an air of confidence about him which Dhont subverts as he leans into his more anxious moments. In a purely script and story sense, Rémi’s death is the avenue for Leo to travel to understand things about himself, but as stated earlier, to cynically claim that he is little more than a plot device is to ignore the love that Dhont has towards Rémi while also writing off all the nuanced work which De Waele adds to the film as a boy slipping deeper and deeper into his depression. Rémi is a boy, lost and let down, not only by his best friend but by the society that condemns his very real and very large feelings simply because he is supposed to be an unmoveable and unshakeable man.

Without taking away from De Waele’s fine performance, Dambrine truly shines in the second half of Close as he deals with guilt and grief by stomaching it inside of him, afraid to show any true signs of loss so as not to fuel any more rumors about their relationship. He pours himself into ice hockey even more so than before, transforming himself from a thin boy who often wore light-colored clothes to match his pale skin and blonde hair – a cherub – into someone much rougher and more formidable in his all-black helmet and dark uniform. Rémi’s mother, Sophie (Émilie Dequenne), even comments on how strong he looks after practice; but with all of this gear on, it is more a game of pretend than the opening sequence with Rémi in the bunker. Slowly, Leo allows himself to open up as he joins his brother, Charlie (Igor van Dessel), in his bed in the middle of the night, seeking the comfort of not being alone, but not quite ready to admit “I miss him” until a few weeks later. Without getting too far off course, it must be stated that van Dessel, likewise, excels in a thankless role. The teenager, with his life ahead of him, finds himself in an impossible position unsure of how to provide comfort to Leo, but the stability he offers his brother is a beacon that prevents the young boy from losing more of himself knowing that support is there if and when he is ready for it which only adds to Leo’s guilt of not providing that same stability to his friend when he was alive. It is not until Leo suffers a broken arm during hockey practice that he finally begins to put a name to the pent-up emotions he was feeling. Sure, there have been sporadic outbursts in the weeks and months that followed Rémi’s death that we as the omnipotent observer understand, but Leo is not yet fully cognizant of. That Dambrine is able to navigate so carefully through the labyrinth of emotion is a testament not only to his own ability as an actor but to the care and compassion in Dhont’s direction, too. 

Close is a challenging work, specifically because of its simplicity. The script feels full, but is never overwritten or dragged down by its material. Set against the flower fields – itself, a rebuke of masculinity, despite the muscle and machinery used during the harvest which van den Eeden’s camera is all too happy to highlight – it is a beautiful and poignant portrait of an adolescence affected by, but hopefully not defined by tragedy. Loss weighs heavy on the film, it is unavoidable, but Dhont gives us so many happy memories shared with Rémi, that while it does not remove the pain of such a young life cut so short, he is able to capture the unsettling feeling of grief, remorse, and guilt through the young lens of a boy who has not totally lost touch of his purity on emotions. It is important to note that while guilt is a huge emotion that Leo has to process, Dhont never blames the boy for Rémi’s suicide, but rather sympathizes with how Leo can feel as if he was a contributing factor to Rémi’s ultimate decision to end his life. Without words or even an example to truly follow in how to react, Leo sets out on this journey of self-discovery. With all the joy and closeness which we experience alongside the two boys in the first half of the film, it is understandable that the second half feels like a cruel bait-and-switch, but much like life, there are highs and lows, and Dhont shows us with incredible care and precision one boy’s reckoning of his own self-consciousness.