"We are close because we are best friends."
Spoilers ahead...
Plot Summary: About broken friendship and more
Leo (Eden
Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele), two thirteen-year-old boys, are very
close friends who are hard to separate - eating together, playing games
together, and having sleepovers. They even manage to be in the same class in
their first year of school. However, their closeness leads to questions from
other boys and girls, eventually causing Leo to doubt himself and begin
distancing himself from Remi. This leads to an unfortunate incident, leaving
Leo and others to grieve and attempt to heal.
This
movie almost feels identical to The Banshees of Inisherin because the
first act is so enjoyable, as are the starting portions of the second act. The
initial friendship is well established, and there are subtle hints that this
may be more than just 'close friends'. I like how the growing distance is shown
with Leo developing new tastes, including ice-skating, and making new friends.
The themes of male toxicity and homophobia are handled in a subtle manner,
highlighting the challenges of teen friendship and coming-of-age.
Disappointing Second Half of Close
What
brings the movie down for me is the sudden change (again like Banshees)
with the suicide moment, after which the plot revolves around grief and
healing, making it very mediocre. There's way too much time spent on the
ice-hockey scenes, and it's a long wait for the confrontation scene when Leo
lets his guilt out to Remi's mother.
A better
narrative could have involved a full second act revolving around how much
further distant Leo grows from Remi and then using the final act to show some
kind of major reaction, which needn't be a suicide. The scenes involving Remi's
mother since the loss of her son didn't invoke the emotions I expected.
If you
think about it, that one talk from the girls to Leo and Remi changed
everything. Those girls may not even realize that more than Leo, they are the
ones responsible for Remi's death. It is really tough to pinpoint a person
responsible, to be honest. One could argue that Remi was too emotional and, for
his age, just couldn't take the betrayal of his closest friend at all. The
movie deeply explores mental health issues and the impact of emotional drama on
young minds.
Excellent Performances by Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele
Eden
Dambrine is brilliant, playing a coming-of-age character struggling with new
learnings and a huge loss at his age, along with the guilt that he may
unknowingly be the reason why Remi did what he did. Gustav De Waele is equally
good, even with lesser screen time. It was heartbreaking to see how Remi has a
fistfight with Leo at school, which was more of an emotional outburst that had
been building for a while.
Verdict on Close
Overall,
Close promises a lot in the first half of the movie and then falters, becoming
manipulatively emotional. A different execution would have resulted in a much
better movie.
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