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"Close," about two small-town Belgian boys who are as tight as brothers, is a devastating movie. But to what end? 

I can't say what I mean by that question—not at this point—because "Close" is critic-proof, perhaps discussion-proof, if the reader or listener hasn't already seen it. A pivotal early plot development makes it impossible to discuss at length or in detail, lest the writer be pilloried for "spoilers." And yet to avoid discussing the rest of the movie is to avoid discussing the movie. So all that remains is handing out compliments to the cast (they are superb, no doubt—especially Eden Dambrine and Gustav de Waele as the young friends) and to director-cowriter Lukas Dhont , who imbues the story with a polished naturalist quality that occasionally evokes Terrence Malick (" The Tree of Life " comes to mind often). Let's say at the top of this review that, evaluated purely on a craft level, "Close" is a remarkable film with exquisitely modulated performances and imagery, but that the more distance I got from it, the more I resented how carelessly it handles emotionally explosive material of a type that has traumatized so many real-life families, and the more questions I had about what, exactly, the viewer is supposed to take away from the experience.

Léo (played by Dambrine) and Rémi (played by Waele) both grew up on small farms worked by their families. They ride their bikes to and from school every day, and at the end of a workday, one will often go over to the other's house for dinner and to sleep over. The film's script, by Dhont and his regular collaborator Angelo Tijssens , characterizes the relationship in a way that allows viewers to superimpose their readings; some have seen this as a queer-coded relationship (one or both boys is gay but perhaps haven't consciously realized it yet) while for others, it's about how the innocent, unaffected physicality of younger boys who can share a bed without feeling self-conscious or anxious and can hug, touch, even hold hands in public without feeling disapproving eyes on them, tends to harden and reconfigure itself into cliches of "cool" or seemingly emotionless straight masculinity when they get older, and homophobic classmates conditioned by reactionary parents begin characterizing any display of the earlier behavior as "queer," and therefore unacceptable.

If a schoolteacher wanted to explain the concept of heteronormativity to children (an idea that would not be allowed in most United States public schools today, thanks to reactionary political interference in local districts) they could screen "Close," because the movie lays it all out plainly. However one characterizes or codes it, there's nothing wrong with anything having to do with these boys and their relationship. In any case, it's nobody's business but theirs (and their parents'). The movie treats their affection as pure and even heroic, like something from a 19th-century poem about a love so true that it transcends time, culture, and even flesh. Léo adores Rémi—you can see it in the way he looks at Rémi when the latter is practicing his clarinet or soloing at a school recital—and he also loves how Rémi's family has accepted him as a bonus son. Léo looks at Rémi's mother Sophie ( Émilie Dequenne ) the same way, idealizing and practically worshiping her with his gaze. 

Rémi seems to feel the same way about Léo and his family. It's probably not an accident of casting that Léo's big brother, with his dark hair and eyes, looks like he could be a member of Rémi's family. Dhont's filmmaking draws a parallel between the love that Léo and Rémi feel and express for each other and the way their two families seem to blend together both geographically and emotionally (there are two houses, but at times it feels like early part the story is unfolding in one big house). This is love as an eradication of perceived boundaries.

[ Spoilers from here]

Then the usual homophobic social garbage comes into play, with both boys and girls at Léo and Rémi's school asking impertinent and leading questions about their relationship, then escalating to slurs and abuse. Both boys are upset by this, but only Léo begins to alter his behavior as a result, getting in with a new peer group that has organized itself around ice hockey (its leader is a young jock who initiated some of the taunting) and passively rebuffing Rémi's expressions of friendship and closeness. 

The film is at its best in this section of the story. Through Dambrine's and de Waele's extraordinarily intuitive and exact performances as much as through the script, we understand that dynamic wherein one person does things that are devastating to someone they love, due to reasons of social pressure, and know deep down that it's wrong to do it, but keep doing it anyway, and refuse to give explanations when the injured party asks for them because explaining would require justification. There's no way to justify that kind of selfish meanness. 

Rémi's pain at being rejected by Léo is intense, particularly after a night where Léo gets self-conscious sleeping in the same bed with him and takes a mattress by himself on the floor. The public expression of Rémi's hurt looks to outsiders like that of a spurned lover, and on some deep level that might be what it is; but these boys are both barely sexual, and not conversant in such terminology, so all they can do is feel.

And then, as you've probably already gathered from the ominous but vague warnings at the top and the spoiler warning two paragraphs above this one, Rémi kills himself about a third of the way through the story. The rest of "Close" is about the two families and the community reacting to this awful event. 

And it's here that the movie started to lose me even as I continued to admire its performances, direction, and overall sense of craft. 

I haven't seen too many films about grief that so keenly capture that feeling right after a catastrophic loss where everyone close to the deceased is wandering around looking like they've just climbed out of a wrecked car, and spending inordinate amounts of time sitting and staring at nothing in particular. The "life goes on anyway" scenes are strong as well, especially the scenes of Léo growing close to the hockey players who become his friends even though their cruelty helped spark this catastrophe (this is an unhealthy thing that happens in life, unfortunately—sometimes the people who helped cause your grief are the ones who comfort you afterward). 

Even more affecting are scenes of Rémi's mother Sophie seeming to be drawn to Léo, and he to her, in the aftermath—as if she's realizing that he could be a son to her, a partial consolation for an irreplaceable loss, and her a mother to him. The horror and shock following the loss of a child isn't something that popular art dares to examine close up with any regularity. Dead children are more often referred to in past tense or used as plot devices (the thing that isn't talked about until characters finally talk about it). So it's admirable, in a way, that "Close" decided to go where it went. 

But what does it find and show once it has gone there? That's the question I have no good answer to. 

This is, when you get down to it, the story of a horrible thing that happened, that nobody who actually helped cause it can understand (or shows any sign of even wanting to understand), that no one in the dead boy's immediate circle saw coming or could have prevented, and that smashes two families' understanding of themselves to pieces. And it leaves poor Léo carrying around an unimaginable and (for him) mystifying burden: he feels like this is all his fault, even though it isn't. The movie generates suspense by making us wonder when Léo is finally going to tell Sophie that (in his mind) he caused her loss. It finally happens in the last ten minutes of the story, and the dead boy's family immediately leaves town, and the film ends with poor Léo looking into their now-empty house. 

What are we left with, at that point, except the knowledge that this boy is going to feel this for the rest of his life as if through caused the suicide of his best friend and shattered his family? Is there anything else attached to that takeaway beyond a trite formulation like "homophobia is bad, don't do it"? The director is great at punching audiences in the gut, yes. But there should be more than the punch, the exhalation of breath, and the realization that one has just been punched. And, to nitpick a bit, is it really possible that Sophie (and the rest of that family) would not have put two and two together and figured out that the most likely trigger for Rémi's impulsive act was his public rejection by the boy he treated as a soulmate? 

As focused and controlled as every scene in "Close" is, it feels, in a way, calculated and almost cruel. It could be a reminiscence made many years after the tragedy by one of the boys who tormented Rémi and Léo—except that one would hope that if one of those kids grew up and made a movie like this one, it would not be quite so clinical in its examination of awful things happening to people who did nothing to deserve it; and that it would go deeper into Léo's story, and show how he did or did not come to understand what actually happened, rather than leaving us with what feels like the start of another movie, one that we may never get to see.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Close (2023)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide and brief strong language.

104 minutes

Eden Dambrine as Léo

Gustav De Waele as Rémi

Émilie Dequenne as Sophie

Léa Drucker as Nathalie

Igor van Dessel as Charlie

Kevin Janssens as Peter

Marc Weiss as Yves

• Lukas Dhont
• Angelo Tijssens

Cinematographer

• Frank van den Eeden
• Alain Dessauvage
• Valentin Hadjadj

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Close review – achingly poignant tale of the end of a childhood friendship

Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s Oscar-nominated drama about two inseparable boys tragically driven apart is a low-key treat

A tale of childhood bonds broken lands a weighty emotional punch in writer-director Lukas Dhont’s Oscar-nominated second film, a heartbreaking coming-of-age picture that represents Belgium in the best international feature category feature category, and which shared the Grand Prix at Cannes last year. Astonishingly natural and engaging performances from young newcomers Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele lend heartfelt authenticity to a film that builds upon the promise of 2018’s Girl , confirming Dhont as a deft and empathetic chronicler of the tumultuous anguish and ecstasy of adolescence.

We meet Léo and Rémi on the cusp of their teenage years, approaching secondary school. Best friends, they are like two sides of a divided soul, locked together in a bubble of play-acting that can transform the world around them into a field of dreams. Everything about them is perfectly in sync; physically, mentally, emotionally. An early shot of the two boys running side by side through a field of soon to be harvested flowers positively bursts with joy, reminiscent of the glowing cornfields into which our young hero escapes in Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher .

Nothing can come between this pair until fellow pupils start to notice and comment upon their closeness. “Are you together?” asks a girl, and when Léo replies “No!”, the follow-up question is: “Are you sure?” While Rémi remains silent, Léo reacts with horror, withdrawing from his constant companion, turning his attentions instead to the more rough-and-tumble world of ice hockey, in which boys will be boys and faces are covered by protective masks. As for Rémi, his inability to understand Léo’s rejection (perhaps intertwined with a deeper understanding of what’s going on) erupts in rage, isolation and then something altogether more tragic.

With Girl , which won the Caméra d’Or and the Queer Palm at Cannes in 2018 , Dhont was accused in some quarters of exploiting the story of a young transgender ballet dancer, with Oliver Whitney in the Hollywood Reporter calling it “sadistic… made for uneducated cisgender audiences to feel like they get it”. It’s possible that the self-harming aspects of Close may similarly provoke accusations of melodramatic contrivance or tearjerking manipulation. Yet the register of the film remains so resolutely low-key that even its most overtly dramatic scenes are tempered by a sense of distance and understatement. To their great credit, screenwriters Dhont and Angelo Tijssens never allow their characters to tell us directly what we have already divined. Instead, the director trusts his actors and his editor, Alain Dessauvage, to do the narrative heavy lifting, allowing cinematographer Frank van den Eeden’s unobtrusively intimate camerawork to focus on the faces of the protagonists, and on the subtle movements and gestures of their bodies.

It helps that the adult players are every bit as convincing as their young counterparts, particularly Émilie Dequenne, who first rose to fame playing the teenage title role in the Dardenne brothers’ 1999 Palme d’Or winner Rosetta , for which she earned a Cannes best actress prize. Now, a couple of decades later, she plays Rémi’s mother, Sophie, in whose nurturing company Léo seems to lose himself. A scene in which the boys and Sophie recline together in an outdoor idyll while she jokes about their relative affections for her is blissfully unguarded, casting the trio as part of one happy family. Later, when Rémi’s father quietly breaks down in tears at dinner, it’s Léo’s sense of loss and guilt that strike the clearest note.

A superb score by Valentin Hadjadj perfectly captures the knife-edge emotional tone of the picture, with spiralling motifs and lonely soaring strings evoking both the fluttering hearts and searing confusions of its central characters. It’s a gorgeous accompaniment, full of longing and loss in a manner that reminded me somewhat of Nicholas Britell’s work on Barry Jenkins’s Oscar winner Moonlight . Both films are concerned with the youthful search for identity – the overwhelming sadness of turning one’s back on the infinite possibilities of the past, the guilty burdens of the present and the elusive hope of redemption in the future. No wonder their respective scores chime together so harmoniously.

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‘Close’ Review: This Belgian Buddy Story Seems So Beautifully Understated, Until Suddenly It Isn’t

Lukas Dhont presents a profoundly felt portrait of two inseparable friends, until a manipulative midway twist shatters the spell.

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SPOILER ALERT : The penultimate paragraph of this review contains spoilers.

“Close” marks an auspicious return to the Cannes Film Festival for Dhont, whose 2018 Camera d’Or-winning debut, “Girl,” was simultaneously ahead of and behind the cultural conversation about trans youth. That remarkable first film dramatized the journey of an impatient teen anxious to become a ballerina, but cast a cisgender boy to tell that story, earning directing and acting prizes around the world, and pushback from the trans community in the U.S. Among the objections leveled by GLAAD and other critics was to a climactic scene in which the trans girl jeopardizes her life (and her future gender reassignment surgery) by cutting off her penis — a dramatic cliché that sends a potentially dangerous message to impressionable audiences who might identify with the main character.

“Close” presents a version of the same problem, but we’ll get to that later. First, it’s worth celebrating the first 45 minutes of the film, which will resonate deeply with anyone, gay or straight, who’s ever found themselves adapting their behavior according to the homophobia of others. We meet lifelong besties Leo and Remi playing together in a makeshift fort a stone’s throw from blooming dahlia fields — an incredibly specific, unspeakably lovely profession for Leo’s family that would surely make Terrence Malick envious (his characters could spin for hours among the shoulder-high flowers).

Are Leo and Remi gay? Might one of them be, but not the other? (These are not irrelevant questions, even if the film stubbornly refuses to address them.) In the real world, by the age of 13, many boys have already had their first sexual experiences with neighbors, cousins or classmates, if not predatory adults in their circle — and here I’m speaking not just of gay boys but all young men, regardless of who or what they wind up fancying. It probably wouldn’t be appropriate for “Close” to dramatize such dynamics between two minors, but it would go a long way toward answering the movie’s million-dollar question.

On the first day of a new school term, surrounded by an unfamiliar group of students, the boys cling to one another especially tight in class and at recess (the way the siblings did in fellow Belgian Laura Wandel’s similarly insightful “Playground”). In the cafeteria, a surprisingly forward girl puts the question to them, “Are you together?” and Leo tenses up, explaining that they’re just “close,” like brothers.

It’s a life-changing moment for Leo and Remi, though neither one fully realizes it at the time. Like Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge, all innocence falls away. To be clear: These two have done nothing wrong (and even if they were practicing the kama sutra in their free time, instead of merely blowing in one another’s ears, it would be no one’s business but their own). But they have just experienced a key jolt of heteronormative socialization. They’ve been told that their friendship is not normal , and no one wants to be different in middle school. And thus a wedge is introduced to their friendship.

Suddenly self-conscious, Leo starts to behave differently. When Remi touches him at school, he recoils, shifting his position. Previously, they’d shared the same table in class, but now they sit on opposite sides of the classroom. Leo attends one of Remi’s flute recitals, but feels uncomfortable when his buddy shows up at hockey practice, waiting in the stands the way a girlfriend might. Leo is figuring out what it means to be a man in the modern world, and one of the codes by which he’s expected to live is to be mindful of his emotional and physical proximity to other guys.

Because the movie goes out of its way to present the boys as pre-sexual, the tragedy seems all the more unfair. Some people have a clear notion of their identities at 13, but most are still figuring it out five, 10 or even 20 years later. Whatever identity he assumes later in life, who can blame Leo for not wanting to be put in a box?

Sincere as it may be, this tragedy feels like a narrative device, designed to prove some kind of ideological point, when “Close” could have taken the far harder dramatic road of watching how these two boys navigate the newly discovered peer pressures. Many audiences will have no issue with Dhont’s choice, and the movie may well win a major prize at Cannes — it’s that strong in places. But in life, suicide is often seen as “taking the easy way out,” and in falling back on that trope, the movie does the same. I am convinced that Dhont has a masterpiece in him. But there’s an immaturity to his movies that he must first overcome. He’s already so close.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Competition), May 24, 2022. Running time: 104 MIN.

• Production: (Belgium-France-Netherlands) A Lumière (in Belgium), Diaphana Distribution (in France) release of a Menuet, Diaphana Films, Topkapi Films, Versus Prod. production, in co-production with VTM, RTBF, with support from Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Netherlands Film Fund (NFF), the Netherlands Filmproduction Incentive, Film and Audiovisual Center of Wallonia Brussels Federation, Canal+, Ciné+, Sacem, Eurimages, Tax Shelter Measure of the Belgian Federal Government, Casa Kafka Pictures. (World sales: The Match Factory, Cologne.) Producers: Michiel Dhont, Dirk Impens. Co-producers: Michel Saint-Jean, Laurette Schillings, Arnold Heslenfeld, Frans van Gestel, Jacques-Henri Bronckart.
• Crew: Director: Lukas Dhont. Screenplay: Lukas Dhont, Angelo Tijssens. Camera: Frank van den Eeden. Editor: Alain Dessauvage. Music: Valentin Hadjadj.
• With: Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Emili Dequenne, Léa Drucker, Kevin Janssens, Marc Weiss, Igor Van Dessel, Léon Bataille. (French, Flemish dialogue)

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Close review: Cannes favorite is a monumental achievement

Teenage newcomer eden dambrine delivers a towering performance in this oscar-nominated meditation on grief and shame.

Close is a gut punch of a film. Best to make that clear right off the bat. Later, we’ll get to the way that adjectives like “tender,” “quiet,” and “intimate” capture its warm-hearted sensibility. But for now, there’s no escaping that Lukas Dhont’s French-language childhood fable, which took home the Grand Prix at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and earned an Oscar nomination for  Best International Feature Film , left this critic in a near-catatonic state when its credits rolled.

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Oftentimes when discussing childhood, we mistake an unguarded sense of openness and possibility for innocence, one that gets tarnished and weathered with time. But that disregards the way that growing beyond childish delights can be violent or even ruinous. This is especially true for kids whose embrace of imagination when it comes to themselves and those around them can crash into the limiting labels and ready-made boxes society has on offer. Close enters that discussion by offering a heartbreaking tale of a beautiful friendship between two boys that sours from the outside in.

Léo and Rémi (Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele) spend most of their time in their own world. Their days are spent outdoors playing make-believe games where the two stand alone against an encroaching enemy army. Their nights, in contrast, are spent in quiet introspection with Léo tenderly helping Rémi silence his anxious thoughts with fables about ducklings. The pair are inseparable, finding in one another not just a “BFF” but someone, as Léo explains it at one point, who’s almost like a brother.

Yet such brotherly love—especially in the physical closeness that Léo and Rémi exhibit—finds no place when they’re at school. Snickers from girls in their class and venomous comments from boys create a rift between them. And as Léo begins to pull away, Rémi finds himself adrift. This bond he’d long nurtured is suddenly embarrassing, eventually making their interactions fraught with minefields that neither boy cares to acknowledge. Dhont allows us to spend enough time with them both to see how fragile their friendship becomes before he unsettles us with an unspeakable tragedy.

“Something happened.”

With those two words, the entire film turns. The delicate intimacy of late-night conversations and daytime games gets gnashed from within. Dhont is careful to only offer us the briefest of hints of what happened. Yet with visual and storytelling efficacy—Dhont is carefully attuned to how much a throwaway line about Rémi’s inability to lock the door to his family’s shared bathroom suddenly shifts when the door is later seen smashed in—the film makes clear that what’s taken place is everything a mother would fear.

And so, what begins as a careful study of a budding bond becomes a meditation on grief. Léo, whom the camera follows with welcome ease, tries to go on about his life with the knowledge that it’ll never be the same. You witness him, almost in real time, mourn both what was and what could’ve been.

True to its title, Close relishes working at the level of the close-up. Dhont’s gaze lingers on Dambrine’s wide-eyed expressions, at first allowing us to see the love Léo has for Rémi, and later to capture the vexing feelings that overcome him whether in school-mandated grief counseling sessions, rugged hockey practices, or concerts where it’s clear his mind is searching for a way to make sense of all he’s experiencing. Early in the film, his roving eyes landed lovingly on Rémi, as if he’d found a port where he can anchor his entire world. Later, he searches around for ways to ground the immeasurable guilt and loss he feels. What Dambrine does with so many wordless gestures and dialogue-free scenes is nothing short of extraordinary, especially for the way he captures a depth of feeling that’s grounded in what we’d otherwise deem as indifference or passivity.

One of the gifts of Close is the way it refuses any tidy didacticism. The thorny questions it poses around shame and grief can’t be neatly summarized nor are they easily explained away. Dhont pushes his audience into increasingly uncomfortable situations, at dinner tables and in car rides, that defy us to learn any lessons at all from what happened to Rémi. Moreover, it doesn’t present grief as following any kind of foreseeable path; adults and kids alike grapple with grief in such varied ways that you understand Dhont’s desire to steer clear of maudlin melodrama which would narrativize such feelings, giving them a logical endpoint.

Carefully tracking Léo’s loss and the weight of responsibility for what happened, Close presents us with a character who keeps needing to find ways to better express his emotions and who searches, in others and in himself, for such healthy outlets. It’s what makes its impactful final shot so weighted with meaning; he may never find what he’s looking for if he only looks back. He’ll constantly be called to look ahead and beyond, knowing such a gaze will forever be rooted in a longing for what’s been left behind. Close is exquisite, tender, and bruising in equal measure, managing to feel both like an open wound and a balm.

( Close opens in New York and Los Angeles on January 27.)

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Close review: Homophobia unravels a childhood friendship in a heartbreaking Oscar-nominated drama

At its best, the belgian nominee for best international film is subtle and brutally honest, article bookmarked.

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Is there anything sadder in a boy’s life than the moment they realise they have to become men? You often see it play out in real time, where a kind of free-wheeling innocence becomes corrupted by essentialist ideas of what a man needs to be. Sports are a must. Sensitivity is a problem. Touch another boy by all means, but only if it’s a macho thwack or a hearty backslap. Anything else is suspect.

Lukas Dhont ’s Belgian drama Close – a Best International Film nominee at this month’s Oscars – makes great hay of these moments. We see 13-year-old Léo (Eden Dambrine) pushing away the head of his best friend Rémi (Gustav De Waele), who’s resting it lazily on his chest. We see their sharing of a bed at sleepovers suddenly become loaded with meaning, so Léo sleeps elsewhere. We see the panic that appears in Léo’s eyes when a squad of girls ask him if he and Rémi are a couple.

Léo and Rémi aren’t a couple in any traditional sense of the word. Sexuality hasn’t – as far as we know – been a factor in their relationship until their peers suggest it is. But when others start to project onto them, insisting there’s something unusual about their physical and emotional intimacy, it creates a fissure between both boys. Léo grows distant. Rémi is left confused and bereft.

There is a brutal honesty to these early scenes in Close , which are played with heartbreaking subtlety. We tend to think of homophobia in its broadest strokes – protest signs, institutional cruelty, the alt-right at drag shows. But it also needles its way into the quietest of places, distorting our perceptions of things both simple and entirely meaningless. For Léo, merely standing near Rémi for a substantial period of time begins to set the cogs turning.

Sadly, Close starts to paint in broader strokes as it goes on. There is a hard turn at its midpoint that feels coldly calculated, and it’s something the film never quite recovers from. Dhont’s visuals are strong and sumptuous and he coaxes spellbindingly naturalistic performances from first-time actors Dambrine and De Waele, but a gulf in tone separates both halves of his film. Hushed glances between estranged friends give way to maximalist drama and heavy-handed symbolism, as if the everyday horror of growing up needs literal horror to be cinematic.

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Dir: Lukas Dhont. Starring: Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Émilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker, Kevin Janssens. 12A, 104 minutes.

‘Close’ is in cinemas

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clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

‘Close’: A story of friendship, told in a fresh and urgently new way

The oscar-nominated belgian drama follows the evolution of the bond between two 13-year-old boys.

In “Close,” Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele play Léo and Rémi, 13-year-old best friends living in rural Belgium. As the movie opens, the boys are deep inside the imaginary world they’ve shared since they were little, whispering about unseen invaders, smiling at shared jokes, running through the flower fields Léo’s family tends for a living. Soon, the two are starting school, where their relationship comes under casual but pointed scrutiny. “Are you together?” a girl asks at one point — and the question sends the boys into a vortex of confusion, rejection, pain, anger and agonizing guilt.

Written and directed by Lukas Dhont, “Close” — which has been nominated for an Oscar for best international film — is an exquisitely calibrated study of the inchoate impulses and gestures that make up so much of human experience. Training his camera to observe Dambrine and De Waele in their characters’ most un-self-conscious moments, Dhont achieves a perfect balance of intimacy and discretion. Although Léo and Rémi are like brothers — they share the same lanky, loose-limbed physique — they’re also different in essential ways. When one of them begins to pull away, Dhont does the audience and his protagonists the favor of making space for the fact that such ruptures are the result not just of overcompensation or cruelty, but of simple growth and change.

2023 Oscar nominations: ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ dominates

Or maybe they can be all of it, all at once. The drama of “Close” eventually centers not just on the boys, but on the adults in their lives, specifically Rémi’s mother, played in a quietly wrenching turn by Émilie Dequenne. What begins as an idyllic portrayal of the liberation, sweetness and unguarded emotions of youth evolves into an equally beautiful but bittersweet reflection on the getting of wisdom at its toughest and most painful. In obliquely addressing masculine codes of aggression, reticence and emotional distance, Dhont never resorts to billboard statements or lectures. Rather, he allows those observations to emerge naturally, in a story whose meaning shifts as organically as his characters do. (He does something wonderful with structure, whereby Léo and Rémi’s fraternal bond is recapitulated later in the film.) The title of “Close” starts out as an adjective, describing Léo and Rémi’s preternatural bond; eventually, it becomes a noun, as one chapter ends and another begins. Dhont tells a familiar story in what feels like a fresh and urgently new way, with sensitivity, sadness and promising glimmers of hope.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains mature thematic material involving suicide and brief strong language. In French and Flemish with subtitles. 105 minutes.

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Lukas dhont’s ‘close’: film review | cannes 2022.

The Belgian director explores the fragile world of childhood bonds in his second feature, starring Eden Dambrine and Gustave De Waele as 13-year-old best friends.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition) Cast: Eden Dambrine, Gustave De Waele, Emilie Dequenne, Kevin Janssens, Igor Van Dessel, Marc Weiss, Léa Drucker, Marc Weiss, Leon Bataille Director: Lukas Dhont Screenwriters: Lukas Dhont, Angelo Tijssens

When listing the cast members, the credits for Close run through the major players and then throw up the title card reading “and introducing Eden Dambrine,” as if confidently announcing this young man will be making many more films after this. Let’s hope that’s true, because the photogenic star gives a gob-smacking performance, one that really looks like it’s the product of the actor’s own skill, not just the result of good direction, editing and masses of takes. Which is not to take anything away from the editing or direction, especially given how well Dhont proved he could work with young people in Girl .

I am elevating Dambrine here more than De Waele, who also gives a knockout performance as Leo’s best friend, Remi. Readers who don’t want to know more should stop reading now because it’s impossible to praise this film’s achievement without “spoiling” a key plot point that unfolds about a third of the way in. We’re grown-up film lovers here, and knowing what happens doesn’t actually “spoil” the movie; this is not an Agatha Christie whodunnit. In many ways, being aware of what’s coming might enrich the experience, as well as serve as a trigger warning for readers and viewers especially sensitive about certain topics.

So here’s the thing: It doesn’t look like at first, but this is really a film about suicide and guilt. When the film starts, Leo and Remi, said to have been best friends since forever, have one of those passionate, profound bonds that only happen in childhood. They’re presexual, like a pair of young puppies, at ease laying their heads on one another’s shoulders, sitting close enough to touch, or even spooning together in bed as they would with a brother or parent.

Remi doesn’t understand, or maybe he does and that’s even worse. Either way, he doesn’t show up for a class outing to the seaside one autumn morning, and by the time the school bus is pulling into the parking lot, everyone’s parents are there to meet them, ready to escort them to the assembly hall to learn tragic news. Leo works out just from looking at his mother’s (Lea Drucker) face that something is wrong, before she even says the wrenching words that Remi “isn’t with us anymore.”

The rest of the film is essentially about how Leo copes with this devastating shock, which at first he can’t even acknowledge, let alone reveal that deep down he suspects his own treatment of Remi led to his friend’s death. Time passes in the rural Belgian town where the action takes place, and the change of seasons means it’s time to throw away, with somewhat heavy-handed symbolism, all the pompom dahlia flower heads Leo’s farming family can’t sell anymore and then dig up the tubers.

Throwing himself into hockey, helping on the flower farm, and exploring his new friendship circle, Leo slowly works through all five of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief, and a few more besides — including the stage where he keeps trying to come see Remi’s grieving mother Sophie (Emilie Dequenne), but can’t say any of the things he needs to say to her.

If one were to be really nit-picky, the film might have done with just a little less observation of Leo playing ice hockey, Leo sitting in class, Leo looking happy and then secretly sad for a moment. But then it’s hard not to enjoy watching Dambrine expand his range as his character — and presumably the real actor himself, getting taller as the film goes on — grows up.

It’s just on the bring of overkill, except that Dhont keeps the brakes on just enough by making his protagonist too frightened of his own feelings to even speak, so any therapy-speak clichés we hear are in the mouths of other characters who barely knew Remi. Those who truly loved him find themselves crying at the oddest moments — for example his father (Kevin Janssens), who suddenly loses it while having dinner with Leo’s family and talking about ordinary things in the future Remi will never experience. That’s the stuff that will pierce viewers’ hearts, especially anyone who has lost someone to suicide or is just a parent or even ever had a friend.

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition) Cast: Eden Dambrine, Gustave De Waele, Emilie Dequenne, Kevin Janssens, Igor Van Dessel, Marc Weiss, Léa Drucker, Marc Weiss, Leon Bataille Production companies: Diaphana Films, Menuet Producties, Topkapi Films, Versus Production Director: Lukas Dhont Screenwriters: Lukas Dhont, Angelo Tijssens Producers: Michiel Dhont, Dirk Impens Co-producers: Michel Saint-Jean, Laurette Schillings, Arnold Heslenfeld, Frans van Gestel, Jacques-Henri Bronckart Director of photography: Frank van den Eeden Production designer: Eve Martin Costumes: Manu Verschueren Editor: Alain Dessauvage Sound designer: Yanna Soentjens, Vincent Sinceretti Music: Valentin Hadjadj Casting: Sebastian Moradiellos Sales: The Match Factory

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Review: Bring tissues to the Oscar-nominated ‘Close,’ but also a little skepticism

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“Close” badly wants your tears and, on occasion, it earns them. A flawlessly acted, precision-tooled heartbreaker from 31-year-old Belgian writer-director Lukas Dhont, it tells an Edenic love story, conjuring a rapturous state of intimacy that gives way to a tragic fall from grace. What gives the movie its faint whisper of the taboo — a taboo that it proceeds to dismantle — is that the love story here happens to be between two 13-year-old boys, Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele). They’re longtime best friends who have grown as close as brothers, with none of the usual hang-ups about physical affection between boys. Here, even a head resting on a friend’s shoulder expresses a casual but powerful sense of mutual belonging.

Léo and Rémi are inseparable, in part because they’ve both been raised in gorgeous pastoral isolation. Léo’s parents are flower farmers, cueing many lovely shots of the boys running and riding their bicycles past colorful fields. (For better or worse, Dhont and his cinematographer, Frank van den Eeden, seem incapable of composing an unlovely shot.) The camera speeds alongside the boys, keeping pace with them and, it seems, sharing in their joyous sense of abandon. But then it will come to a gentle standstill, tenderly observing as Rémi’s mother, Sophie (Émilie Dequenne), laughs and tumbles with the boys in the grass, or as the two boys share a bed in Rémi’s room, its suggestively dark red walls enfolding them like a cocoon.

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Is there an element of physical attraction at play here? Dhont doesn’t say, and his silence raises another question: Why does it matter? The best thing about “Close,” an Oscar nominee for international feature and a major prizewinner at last year’s Cannes Film Festival , is its firm but gentle destigmatization of boyhood intimacy. Whether Léo and Rémi are going through an unusually intense phase of their friendship or experiencing the early adolescent stirrings of sexual desire — two equally plausible and hardly mutually exclusive possibilities — their bond deserves time, space and understanding, not judgment.

Their families, to their credit, provide them with that understanding. As in “Girl,” his tense, troubling drama about a transgender ballet dancer, Dhont expresses a near-mystical belief in the decency and supportiveness of parents. As a counterbalance, he also understands that children and teenagers are capable of remarkable cruelty, which is where Léo and Rémi’s troubles begin. There’s a telling overhead shot of the boys arriving for their first day of school and immediately getting lost in the crowd; they’re no longer alone, and their bond will never be the same. Before long their casual tenderness draws unwelcome attention from their classmates, some of whom make giggling insinuations (“Are you together?”) and some of whom assault Léo with homophobic slurs.

While Rémi seems generally unfazed, these attacks have a profound effect on Léo, who bristles, panics and begins to pull away from his best friend — a process of rejection that Dambrine, whose sensitive pout and penetrating stare at times recall a young Jude Law, makes legible at every stage. He gives a remarkable performance, as persuasive in its rough-and-tumble physicality as in its delicately understated emotions. As Léo withholds affection and attention from Rémi and eventually begins avoiding him altogether, Dambrine projects a complicated swirl of callousness, vulnerability and regret. And as played by De Waele, Rémi, though less front and center, registers a heartrending incomprehension at Léo’s betrayal.

The two boys may love each other equally, but Rémi’s need is clearly far greater — perhaps because he has no siblings (unlike Léo, who has an older brother he’s also close to), and perhaps for other reasons that Dhont leaves unspoken. And he leaves a great deal unspoken here. “Close” is about a lot of things — the joy of friendship, the heartache of separation and the oppressiveness of masculine stereotypes — but what it’s mostly about is the nature of its characters’ silence. And that silence isn’t always a bad thing: In the movie’s radiant opening passages, Léo and Rémi have little need for words, so palpable is their contentment in each other’s company.

But then in its second half, after the boys’ connection is sharply ruptured, the movie engages an infinitely tougher kind of silence: the fumbling inarticulateness of boys who, even if they could make sense of their emotions, would be hard-pressed to know how to talk about them. The degree to which Léo is stifling his feelings becomes most apparent when he joins an ice hockey team — an athletic pursuit that serves as both a public assertion of conventional masculinity and an opportunity to make new friends. But as the story keeps cutting away to shots of Léo darting across the rink, his movements lightning-swift and his face twisted in concentration, he seems more alone than ever — as if he were trying, through sheer physical force, to exorcise the most private and personal of demons.

For much of “Close,” Dhont’s restraint dovetails artfully with his characters’ repression, though as it progresses, the movie increasingly seems to make a fetish of its own subtlety. At roughly the midway point, Dhont unleashes a narrative development that, while believable enough on its own terms, feels more like an evasion than an exploration of the story’s true emotional potential. That coyness persists through the second half, with a series of suspended conversations and delayed reckonings that strain for honesty, only to bog down in the familiar language of art-house mannerism.

Dhont, a filmmaker of considerable and undeniable talent, has a weakness for telegraphing his own boundless sensitivity. He’s also still learning to braid his competing instincts toward realism and melodrama, as if he were both determined to go for the jugular and a bit embarrassed by his own determination. As good as his actors are — especially the wonderful Dequenne, whose Sophie quietly seeks to repair the boys’ broken bond — they cannot conceal the calculation inherent in this story’s design. Nor can they quite overcome the disconnect between the glossy, self-admiring visual beauty of “Close” and the stormier, uglier emotional depths it purports to uncover.

In French and Dutch dialogue with English subtitles Rated: PG-13, for thematic material and brief strong language Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes Playing: Starts Jan. 27 at AMC the Grove 14, Los Angeles; AMC Century City 15

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Close Review

03 Mar 2023

The pain and vulnerability of coming of age is framed with life-shattering repercussions in Lukas Dhont’s Close , a portrait of two 13-year-old boys' intense friendship and the huge impact of their growing apart after they experience homophobia from their peers. His young performers are heartbreaking and revelatory in their sadness – it’s hard to broadcast such deep emotion without losing an ounce of credibility.

Dhont has always been fascinated with the wars we wage within ourselves, ever since his controversial but striking 2018 debut feature Girl (about a transgender teenage girl aspiring to be a ballerina). Yet he somehow finds a lightness in Close , as his boys run through fields of flowers and look for the light in every day, even when their worlds have been plunged into darkness.

What makes Close shimmer is the beauty it finds in such a harrowing story.

Eden Dambrine plays Leo with wondrous innocence, while Gustav De Waele’s performance as his best friend Rémi is full of pain and tenderness. Dhont avoids gratuitous violence on screen, instead trusting his audience to read between the lines and share compassion with characters living through grief that’s all too familiar, even if you’re not a 13-year-old boy.

What makes Close shimmer is the beauty it finds in such a harrowing story. It's there in the visual language of crisp white shirts, poppy-red bedrooms and butter-yellow sunshine; in the everlasting bonds between mothers and sons and the all-too-rare moments of fragility we glimpse from fathers. It calls to mind Charlotte Wells ’ miraculous Aftersun in some moments — both films feature characters with plaster casts, which seem to act as the only ciphers for the interior broken parts of these young men, beautiful examples of show-don’t-tell sensitivity.

In that acceptance of weakness as a positive thing, there somehow remains hope that wounds can heal, with time. Some might shy away from discussing such enormous mental strain when it comes to teenagers, but films like Close offer what feels like a lifeline – something to be studied and cherished.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Female-driven action thriller has graphic violence, language

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Strong women can be counted on to persevere. Good

Leading character is courageous, resourceful, dete

Frequent brutal battles: hand-to-hand combat, gunf

References to teen having sex with multiple partne

Multiple instances of "f--k," "s--t."

Getac computer.

References to teen's past alcohol and drug abuse;

Parents need to know that Close is a fictional story inspired by a real-life bodyguard, Jacquie Davis, who assisted in the production of the film. The story opens in a war zone with a dramatic, violent sequence in which the leading character reveals her extraordinary skills as a hard-core fighter and weapons…

Positive Messages

Strong women can be counted on to persevere. Good triumphs over evil.

Positive Role Models

Leading character is courageous, resourceful, determined, compassionate, forgiving; she takes her responsibility seriously. Even when forced to act while terrified and distraught, she rises to the occasion. Young troubled teen learns from her rescuer.

Violence & Scariness

Frequent brutal battles: hand-to-hand combat, gunfights, assault weapons, bloodied victims. Point-blank shootings on multiple occasions. War battle. Leading characters, including a teen, are under fire, captured and handcuffed, slapped, choked, barely escape with their lives several times.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

References to teen having sex with multiple partners. She is seen from the back, topless. Female bodyguard is shown in underwear.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

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Drinking, drugs & smoking.

References to teen's past alcohol and drug abuse; she drinks alcohol. Marijuana is smoked. Lead adult character smokes. A bar scene shows drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Close is a fictional story inspired by a real-life bodyguard, Jacquie Davis, who assisted in the production of the film. The story opens in a war zone with a dramatic, violent sequence in which the leading character reveals her extraordinary skills as a hard-core fighter and weapons pro. For the remainder of the movie, she is called upon again and again to use those skills and save a rich, troubled young heiress who is being hunted by powerful villains. Brutal hand-to-hand combat, point-blank shootings, knife-play, captures, daredevil escapes, and attacks with assault rifles result in multiple bloody deaths. Language includes numerous instances of "f--k" and "s--t." There are references to underage alcohol and drug abuse; characters drink and smoke (including marijuana). Females occasionally appear in underwear or revealing clothes, and in one shot from the back, a teen is bare from the waist up. It's set in Morocco, and many of the aggressors are Middle Eastern. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

Though reluctant to take on the assignment of safeguarding a young heiress, Sam ( Noomi Rapace ), an elite bodyguard, finds herself and her charge on the run from both police and killers in CLOSE. After the death of her rich and powerful father, Zoe ( Sophie Nelisse ), now grieving and contemptuous, is at risk from both kidnappers who would hold her for ransom and other more mysterious enemies who want her dead. Escaping from what would appear to be an impenetrable fortress, Sam and Zoe are forced to kill several police officers of questionable allegiance. Sam's attempts to connect with the security company she works for result in yet another nightmarish attack. At the same time, Zoe's stepmother, Rima (Indira Varma), who has an erratic relationship with the troubled teen, is trying to save the family's immense business holdings. Sam and Zoe quickly discern that they can trust no one; they're on their own, and no place is a safe harbor.

Is It Any Good?

Stylish, suspense-filled action sequences with a strong, convincing leading woman aren't enough to satisfy savvy fans who want a coherent, logical, and satisfying story along with the mayhem. There are too many loose ends in Close. Too many random phone calls, secret meetings, and recurring characters whose motives are questionable. It's one thing to wonder who's cleverly behind all of the evil -- it's another to wonder what's going on. And the clichéd disturbed teen who acts out because of feelings of a) abandonment, b) self-loathing, and/or c) desperation to be loved isn't given any new notes to play. Production and performances are fine. Rapace turns in another solid job as the stoic but secretly vulnerable action hero. Adventurous filmmaker Vicky Jewson gets all of the pandemonium right. Still, it doesn't add up to much.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Close . Violence raises the stakes for the "good guys" in films and is meant to be exciting and suspenseful. But how much is too much? What is the impact of violence on kids , even older ones?

Females appear as daring action heroes in an increasing number of movies, and not just as superheroes. How does that reflect changes in the culture? How have women's roles evolved over the last decade? Who are your favorite female action stars?

How does the film's location -- Morocco -- heighten the plight of Sam and Sophie? In what ways did the filmmakers use the distinctive setting to their advantage?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : January 18, 2019
• Cast : Noomi Rapace , Sophie Nelisse , Indira Varma
• Director : Vicky Jewson
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Indian/South Asian actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Adventures , Friendship
• Run time : 94 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 18, 2023

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Blood begets more blood when a victim of an attack that left him deaf and mute seeks revenge on the perpetrators.

At least give it up for the stunt crew on “Boy Kills World,” a boneheaded action movie that gives some exceedingly fit performers — its hard-body star Bill Skarsgard very much included — a chance to flaunt their physical skills. To judge from all the grunting, the straining muscles and cascading sweat, Skarsgard, along with a few of his nimble co-stars and an army of stunt performers, puts in serious work to try to make the relentless bashing and smashing, flailing and dying look good. Too bad the filmmakers were incapable of doing the same.

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Screen Rant

Why late night with the devil just broke a huge shudder record.

Written, directed, and edited by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil is one of 2024's best horror movies.

• Late Night With the Devil is Shudder's biggest opening weekend, thanks to its stellar reviews and major hype.
• Despite controversy, the movie has a great Rotten Tomatoes score and praise from horror icon Stephen King.
• The swift turnaround from theaters to Shudder allows viewers to experience a "new" theatrical movie at home.

Written, directed, and edited by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil is not only one of 2024's best horror movies, but it's breaking streaming records on Shudder . The supernatural horror flick takes an inventive approach to its subject, borrowing from documentary and found footage filmmaking. In doing so, it chronicles the taping of a fictional late-night talk show, Night Owls with Jack Delroy . Hosted by Delroy (David Dastmalchian), the episode in question is meant to boost the talk show's ratings and, as such, airs on Halloween night.

Delroy's occult-themed episode features a whole host of Late Night with the Devil characters...

The film's prologue frames Late Night with the Devil as an investigation into the bizarre incidents that occurred on the night of Halloween back in 1977. Delroy's occult-themed episode features a whole host of Late Night with the Devil characters , from self-proclaimed medium Christou to a magician-turned-skeptic named Carmichael Haig. As the film unravels, a seemingly possessed young woman takes center stage. Although Late Night with the Devil treads familiar ground, it does so with a fresh perspective , making it one of the year's must-watch horror films.

Late Night With The Devil Now Has Shudder's Biggest Opening Weekend

Late night with the devil has outdone v/h/s.

Despite its recent theatrical release, found-footage film Late Night with the Devil has already made the leap to Shudder, AMC Networks' horror-forward streaming platform. The film about the over-eager talk-show host has managed to shock viewers, garnering praise from critics and audiences alike. When it dropped on Shudder on April 19, Late Night with the Devil went on to break the platform's streaming records. In fact, just a few days after its release, it became Shudder and AMC+'s most-watched movie. Previously, the record was held by horror flicks When Evil Lurks and V/H/S/99 .

Late Night with the Devil set a record for IFC, making over $11 million at the box office.

Shudder isn't the only place that the low-budget film, which follows in the footsteps of horror classics like Carrie , has succeeded. Over the course of a few weeks, Late Night with the Devil garnered an impressive box-office draw (in comparison to its budget), making upwards of $11 million. This came on the heels of the news that Late Night with the Devil had grossed precisely $666,666 on its third day in theaters. Needless to say, the small-budget horror movie is making massive waves, and will likely continue its record-setting performance on Shudder.

2024's Highest Rated Horror Movie Is A Reminder To Watch A Terrifying 32-Year-Old Cult Classic

Late night with the devil's reviews & hype helped it break shudder records, even stephen king has praised late night with the devil.

Despite Late Night with the Devil 's AI controversy , the movie has managed to hold tight to an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score. Currently, the horror film is certified fresh with a score of 97%. Aside from word-of-mouth hype and a barrage of positive critical acclaim, horror giants have also praised the movie for its inventive approach and terrifying thrills. Even the master of horror Stephen King claimed he " couldn't take his eyes off " of the low-budget Aussie horror flick . With so much hype built into its release, it's no wonder Late Night with the Devil 's streaming debut was met with record-setting views.

The REAL Reason Why Late Night With The Devil Changes From Black-And-White To Color

Late night with the devil's turnaround from theaters to shudder also helps, the horror movie used its theatrical momentum to soar on streaming.

Roughly a month after its theatrical release in the United States, Late Night with the Devil dropped on Shudder. Unlike other films, which boast streaming releases months and months after their theatrical debuts, the horror movie was able to ride its wave of current success and word-of-mouth chatter . Needless to say, its release on Shudder was an event. Viewers who either couldn't make it to the theater or couldn't find a showing of the buzzy flick were able to tune in from home. Plus, Late Night with the Devil 's ambiguous ending calls for plenty of re-watching, making it perfect for at-home viewers who watched it in theaters.

10 Best Horror Movies Like Late Night With The Devil

Late night with the devil was already a hit before shudder, the small-budget horror film has made $11.3 million.

With a very modest budget, Late Night with the Devil managed to turn what it did have into horror movie gold . On its opening weekend, the IFC Films project garnered $2.8 million, which is an impressive achievement for a film of its size. Clearly, Late Night with the Devil , which blurs scripted and documentary filmmaking techniques, has banked on a marketing strategy that worked well for The Blair Witch Project : word of mouth. For other found-footage horror films, this has been a clear way to break box office records and make sizable returns. As of a month after its theatrical release, Late Night with the Devil has earned $11.3 million.

If anything, Late Night with the Devil proves that there's still a lot to mine from the horror genre. Although possession narratives and found-footage films seem like they could be "overdone," Late Night with the Devil is far from derivative . A genuinely fresh flick, it also isn't connected to any larger cinematic universe or franchise. With Omen prequels and Exorcist sequels abound, that's also a rare thing. As Late Night with the Devil proves, horror films are able to genuinely chill and thrill viewers, and make massive waves — even on small budgets.

Late Night with the Devil is currently in theaters and streaming on Shudder.

Late Night With the Devil

Late Night with the Devil is a horror thriller starring David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy. Delroy is a late-night talk show host in 1977 trying to keep his broadcast on the air. But when he tries to communicate with the devil through a young girl live on the air, things don't go according to plan.

Critics are calling Luca Guadagnino's sexy tennis drama 'Challengers' the 'horniest movie of the year'

• The reviews for Luca Guadagnino's new movie "Challengers" are in. 
• The drama about a former tennis prodigy caught in a love triangle has a 92% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Critics say the film is stylish, the performances are gripping, and the score is exhilarating.

Luca Guadagnino's latest film " Challengers " has finally arrived — and critics can't get enough of the sexy tennis drama.

The movie stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy who becomes a coach after a severe on-court injury forces her to abandon her dream of going pro. Tashi's past and present collide years later at a lower-tier challenger tournament leading up to the US Open , where her husband, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and her ex-boyfriend, Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) — who are also former best friends and doubles partners— compete against each other.

At the time of this article's publication, "Challengers" has a critics score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes , with people praising Guadagnino's direction, Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's pulsating score , and the mesmerizing performances of the main trio of actors. Here's a rundown of the reviews.

Director Luca Guadagnino films the tennis sequences in stylish and inventive ways, aided by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom.

"The tennis is shot with formidable emotional urgency." — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent

"Guadagnino, for his part, treats what could be a visually straightforward relationship/sports drama as a laboratory, where he tinkers with unlikely ways to communicate action and emotion on screen. — Tasha Robinson, Polygon

"Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's nimble shooting style brings excitement to the matches, inventively switching up the angles to bolster the energy. And the intoxication of his camera with the leads' physicality is entirely contagious." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Guadagnino frames his three actors in many close-ups and medium shots where their eyes and the way they ogle each other tell the story. In return, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's camera ogles the actors' bodies, capturing every flicker of light in their eyes, every trembling lip and sweaty brow. All of this makes for a movie high on sexual heat, something not seen much in contemporary American cinema." — Murtada Elfadl, AV Club

Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor deliver undeniable chemistry and star-making performances.

"Like seeing a well-balanced team dominate in triples, the film is a true three-hander, with everyone performing at the top of their game." — Rocco T. Thompson, Slant magazine

"That script is a terrific three-course meal for Faist and O'Connor. They get to trade off face and heel roles from scene to scene and era to era, as Art and Patrick help and hurt each other in equal measure. But it's an absolute smorgasbord for Zendaya, who even in starring roles has never been given this much room to stretch." — Tasha Robinson, Polygon

"All three lead actors carry themselves like movie stars." — Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

"Zendaya, O'Connor, and Faist play off each other charmingly, particularly in the flashbacks when their characters are younger. Those scenes are lively and jocular and the three actors bring into them combustible chemistry." — Murtada Elfadl, AV Club

"Zendaya is the linchpin. Her work here, on the heels of 'Dune: Part Two,' cements her status as a born Movie Star. She moves with the decisive ferocity of a warrior on the court and the floating grace of a ballerina elsewhere." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"The trio of actors all share a crackling chemistry, but the electricity between O'Connor and Faist is strongest. Both men engage in passionate scenes with Zendaya, making out in intense close-ups and tearing clothes off with palpable want. But none of those more physical scenes sear with the level of heat that O'Connor and Faist create with a mere shared glance." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

Justin Kuritzkes' screenplay vacillates between different time periods, mirroring the back-and-forth nature of tennis.

"Justin Kuritzkes's twisty script leaves us guessing as the trio's mind games wreak havoc on each other and the audience all at once." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

"What keeps the movie humming is the skill with which Kuritzkes' script draws out the complications in the trio's relationships." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Constructed like a tennis competition, Justin Kuritzkes' screenplay ricochets back and forth through time, asking us to pivot our brains the way audiences do at the movie's opening challenger match." — Peter Debruge, Variety

"​​Kuritzkes' script nimbly leaps back and forth between their teens and 20s and the present, never missing a beat to put them — and us — through the emotional wringer. And as these three flirt, fumble, fuck, and break each others' hearts, 'Challenger's' tantalizes with its ambush of raw emotions and gnarled repressions." — Kristy Puchko, Mashable

Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's rousing techno and electronica score drives the action forward, on and off the court.

"One of the best surprises turns out to be the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, a propulsive techno score that does a lot of the work to keep the tennis scenes moving." — Caryn James, BBC

"'Challengers's' simple conceit, thrillingly executed, is that every conversation is a tennis match, and every tennis match is a sex scene. The film's galvanizing score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, unifies both." — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent

"Propelling the on-court action is Reznor and Ross's score, bringing a level of bombast to the sports action that at times threatens to overwhelm the action, without ever actually proving distracting." — Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

"The electronic, staccato rhythm mimics the rapid back-and-forth of tennis while also catapulting us into a sound that is inherently sexy in the ways it evokes the hypnotic trance of a dance club." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

There aren't any explicit sex scenes, but "Challengers" is still incredibly sexy.

"There are no explicit sex scenes or orgasms on screen, and yet this is the horniest movie of the year." — Mireia Mullor, Digital Spy

"The promotional materials for 'Challengers' make it out to be slightly more erotically charged than what we actually get on screen; there's certainly sexual content, but it's not as explicit as you'd expect, and it's all very rooted in these characters and their relationships..." — Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

"Those hoping for a threesome throwdown might initially be disappointed here, as there is no literal group sex — neither on screen nor implied offscreen. However, using tennis as a metaphor, every grunt, groan, and drip of sweat (all of which are generously dispersed) has a sexual implication." — Kristy Puchko, Mashable

"There isn't an inch of nudity apart from some extras in the locker room showers, and yet Guadagnino shoots the climactic match with a stylistic vulgarity that suggests what sports might look like if Brazzers suddenly took over for ESPN." — David Ehrlich, IndieWire

"Challengers" is tantalizing and entertaining, regardless of how familiar you are with the rules of tennis.

"Moment by moment, line by line and scene by scene, 'Challengers' delivers sexiness and laughs, intrigue and resentment, and Guadagnino's signature is there in the intensity, the closeups and the music stabs." — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

"Smart, seductive and bristling with sexual tension, 'Challengers' is arguably Luca Guadagnino's most purely pleasurable film to date; it's certainly his lightest and most playful." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Behind every high-speed volley and smashed racket courses raw emotion, resulting in the steamiest (and funniest) sports-centric love triangle since 'Bull Durham.' With some romantic movies, you'd do well to pack tissues. In the case of 'Challengers,' bring a towel. It's that rare film where you'll work up a sweat just from spectating." — Peter Debruge, Variety

"Anchored by three arresting performances and playfully experimental direction, 'Challengers' is fresh, exhilarating, and energetic." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

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Movies | ‘the idea of you’ review: my daughter went to coachella and all i got was this hunky pop star.

Just now, my fingers accidentally typed “The Idea of You” as “The Ikea of You,” and there is indeed a follow-the-directions-very-carefully feeling to the movie premiering on Prime Video May 2.

Anne Hathaway basically saves it from itself. Just when you may be drifting out of interest range watching director/co-writer Michael Showalter’s adaptation of the 2017 Robinne Lee novel, script co-written by Jennifer Westfeldt, along comes the Big Monologue delivered by Los Angeles art gallery owner Solène Marchand, handled so well by Hathaway you forget — for a while — about why you drifted out in the first place.

Three years divorced from her oily, cheating husband, Solène’s at home with her young lover-to-be, the British pop star Hayes Campbell played by Nicholas Galitzine. They share some dicey personal history after sharing a sandwich in her perfect bungalow, away from the paparazzi Hayes attracts everywhere his cheekbones go.

Reluctantly at first, Hathaway’s character talks about the infidelity that led to their breakup. Galitzine’s character is a child of divorce, as is Solène’s teenage daughter (Ella Rubin), and takes heart from this, having just cracked open some psychological scars from his own unsteady family dynamics.

Hathaway, so exceptional as a vastly different character in James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” knows not to make a huge, histrionic thing out of this scene. She plays it with unpredictably paced and timed fragments of complicated feeling, tense hesitations and charged, messy, angry memories bubbling over. It feels truly spontaneous, and alive. And then? Then, Galitzine is required to summarize, like a junior-level script reader: “We’re just two people with trust issues who need to open up a little.”

Here’s the set-up. By accident, while accompanying daughter Izzy and her friends to the Coachella music festival, Solène bumps into Hayes in his personal trailer, which she mistakes for a weirdly spacious port-a-potty. Boom, smitten! Mutually! At first he’s ready to act on it; she’s not, because A.) He’s 24, she’s 40, and B.) What would her daughter think? But Hayes shows up at Solène’s Silver Lake gallery, causing a fuss and promptly buying its entire contents. One sandwich and heart-to-heart later, the affair is off and running, in secret at first, lest the tabloids and Izzy get wind of it, which they do.

“The Idea of You” does everything it can, and a lot more than it should, to repackage a popular bestseller with lots of sex for a touchier mainstream audience. The ages have been changed to protect the nervous: Instead of a 39-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man/boy, the movie adjusts it out of teenager adjacency, settling for 40 and 24.

More unfortunate, I think, the key characters are no longer people of color. And, thanks to the state of Georgia’s industry-best tax credits, this highly LA-specific storyline makes do with a handful of second-unit shots of the actual, hilly, now insanely expensive Silver Lake neighborhood, while most of the filming makes do with Atlanta and Savannah.

No one wants documentary realism with something like this; they just want romantic fantasy. But the movie’s version of Solène feels less like a motivated woman throwing caution to the wind, and more like two different characters, one fighting against the other, sharing one person’s head-space and storyline. This struggle continues all the way to an ending that upends the ending of the book, in hopes of sending people home (wait, sorry, it’s on Prime Video, they’re already home) happy all the way. The right ending is right there, in the second-to-last ending: a nicely judged shot of Solène non-verbally reflecting on the past few weeks, in a simple, compelling close-up.

Director Showalter has made a lot of enjoyable small- and large-screen work, notably in finessing the comic and dramatic strands of “The Big Sick” (2017), which found a large and gratified audience. With “The Idea of You,” the adaptation favors warm, fuzzy and easygoing, with a little sex in nice hotels. It’s probably enough for folks to like it, although ardent fans of the novel may balk at the changes. Either way, if it weren’t for the actress above the title, these pretty-people-problems wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

“The Idea of You” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for some language and sexual content)

Running time: 1:55

Premieres: Prime Video on May 2

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

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Close to You Reviews

While Page gives a strong performance in this well-intentioned family drama, the lack of chemistry between Page and Baack, coupled with the overall flatness of the family’s interactions, leaves this film feeling hollow.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 28, 2024

Director Dominic Savage finds moments of honest insight within scenes continually heightened by conflict. This allows the actors to play emotional scenes with unusual nuance, but it also leaves the film feeling somewhat meandering and indulgent.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 25, 2024

Page’s performance is... a reminder of what a deft and perceptive actor he can be, capable of both naked emotional candor and acidic wit — both assets to a script that sometimes errs on the side of caution.

Full Review | Mar 22, 2024

A therapeutic exercise instead of an enjoyable film.

Full Review | Mar 21, 2024

Finally, we’re able to see Page happy and living as his truest self. For that, I am grateful to Close to You. It doesn’t make up for the film’s weaknesses, but it’s one hell of a strength.

Full Review | Nov 13, 2023

Close to You doesn’t assemble the most remarkable story ever told, nor does it enrich its characters with depth beyond the stereotypical family dynamics.

Full Review | Sep 27, 2023

Close to You keeps us at arm's length. Its experiment with improvisation might have had great intentions in terms of seeking authenticity. However, this method ultimately fails in constructing a successfully engaging narrative or fleshed-out characters

Full Review | Sep 22, 2023

Close to You becomes a tale of two stories: a tension-filled homecoming and an attempt at rekindling a past romance. Both illustrate a distinct aspect of Sam's life ... but the two never quite come together.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 15, 2023

"Close to You" also serves as Page the Movie Star’s reintroduction to audiences, showing he is a singular talent as ever. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Full Review | Sep 14, 2023

The problem is a script that feels largely improvised (despite Page and director Dominic Savage receiving a writing credit), resulting in far too many scenes that play out as a series of awkward banalities.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 12, 2023

The film yearns to capture the stages of this emotional exhumation, but a clunky screenplay makes for a less affecting watch.

Full Review | Sep 12, 2023

All through the scattered experience, Page is a shining light. Every move he makes gives the film something greater that it is never able to grasp. Instead, it all slips away into repetitive conversation scenes that are clunky rather than resonant.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Sep 12, 2023

The things it does well make you wish they could compensate for the stuff that doesn’t. The emotions are real but sometimes you need more than that.

Full Review | Sep 11, 2023

Though clearly from the heart, this improv-heavy indie project is shapeless and confusing.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.9/10 | Sep 11, 2023

Living authentically is one of those phrases that gets used a lot these days, but when Sam says it in the film, it feels layered with such joy, such truth, and such genuine calm that I got chills.

Boasts a soul-baring performance from Page in a drama that is sometimes emotionally testing, but that has the mark of undeniable integrity.

“Close to You” is rife with real emotion, but the gap between vulnerability and meaning keeps everyone at arm’s length.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 11, 2023

Trusting actors to improvise much of their own dialogue is a risk that may have paid off for Savage before and it certainly pays off in certain scenes here but when it doesn’t, it really doesn’t.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 11, 2023

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Bon Jovi docuseries 'Thank You, Goodnight' is an argument for respect

Eric Deggans

Jon Bon Jovi at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., in 2013. David Bergman/Hulu hide caption

Jon Bon Jovi at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., in 2013.

Hulu's docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story , spends a lot of time building up the Bon Jovi legend — exploring the band's almost unbelievable 40-plus-year run from playing hardscrabble rock clubs in New Jersey to earning platinum albums and entry into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

But what moved me most in the four-part series was something more revealing: its close look at the struggle by lead singer Jon Bon Jovi to overcome vocal problems which nearly led him to quit the band.

Footage of the singer croaking through vocal exercises, undergoing laser treatments, enduring acupuncture and finally turning to surgery is sprinkled throughout the series, which toggles back and forth between his problems in 2022 and a chronological story of the band's triumphs and tragedies from its earliest days.

Refusing to be Fat Elvis

Jon Bon Jovi was interviewed for Thank You, Goodnight . Disney/Hulu hide caption

Jon Bon Jovi was interviewed for Thank You, Goodnight .

Through it all, a question hangs: Will Bon Jovi ever recover enough vocal strength to lead a 40th anniversary tour?

"If I can't be the very best I can be, I'm out," he tells the cameras, still looking a bit boyish despite his voluminous gray hair at age 62. "I'm not here to drag down the legacy, I'm not here for the 'Where are they now?' tour ... I'm not ever gonna be the Fat Elvis ... That ain't happening."

Filmmaker Gotham Chopra — who has also directed docuseries about his father, spiritualist Deepak Chopra, and star quarterback Tom Brady — digs deeply into the band's history, aided by boatloads of pictures, video footage and early recordings provided by the group.

Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in Thank You, Goodnight Disney/Hulu hide caption

Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in Thank You, Goodnight

Chopra gets folks from the group's tight inner circle to speak up, including former manager Doc McGhee and guitarist Richie Sambora, who quit the band in 2013. ("Are we telling the truth, or are we going to lie, what are we going to do?" Sambora cracks to his offscreen interviewer. "Let's figure it out.")

But anyone expecting gossipy dish will walk away disappointed. Even major scandals in the band's history are handled with care, including the firing of founding bassist Alec John Such in 1994 (and the admission that his replacement, Hugh McDonald, already had been secretly playing bass parts on their albums for years), drummer Tico Torres' stint in addiction treatment and Sambora's decision to quit midway through a tour in 2013, with no notice to bandmates he had performed alongside for 30 years.

Alec John Such, a founding member of Bon Jovi, dies at 70

Sambora's explanation: When issues with substance use and family problems led him to miss recording sessions, Bon Jovi got producer John Shanks to play more guitar on their 2013 record What About Now . And Sambora was hurt.

"[Bon Jovi] had the whole thing kinda planned out," Sambora says, "which basically was telling me, um, 'I can do it without you.'"

Building a band on rock anthems

Jon Bon Jovi with guitarist Phil X. Disney/Hulu hide caption

Jon Bon Jovi with guitarist Phil X.

The docuseries shows how young New Jersey native John Bongiovi turned a job as a gofer at legendary recording studio The Power Station – owned by a cousin — into a recording of his first hit in the early 1980s, Runaway . His song eventually caught the ear of another little-known artist from New Jersey called Bruce Springsteen.

"The first demo I got of Jon's was a good song," says Springsteen, a longtime friend of Bon Jovi. "I mean, Jon's great talent is these big, powerful pop rock choruses that just demand to be sung by, you know, 20,000 people in an arena."

Music Interviews

Rock star jon bon jovi comes full 'circle'.

Thank You, Goodnight shows the band really took off by honing those rock anthems with songwriter Desmond Child, while simultaneously developing videos that showcased their status as a fun, rollicking live band. Hits like You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin' on a Prayer and Wanted: Dead or Alive made them MTV darlings and rock superstars.

Through it all, the singer and bandleader is shown as the group's visionary and spark plug, open about how strategically he pushed the band to write hit songs and positioned them for commercial success.

"It wasn't as though I woke up one morning and was the best singer in the school, or on the block, or in my house," he tells the camera, laughing. "I just had a desire and a work ethic that was always the driving force."

I saw that dynamic up close in the mid-1990s when I worked as a music critic in New Jersey, spending time with Jon Bon Jovi and the band. Back then, his mother ran the group's fan club and was always trying to convince the local rock critic to write about her superstar son – I was fascinated by how the band shrugged off criticisms of being uncool and survived changing musical trends, led by a frontman who worked hard to stay grounded.

Bon Jovi was always gracious and willing to talk; he even introduced me to then-New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman at one of his legendary Christmas charity concerts. (And in a crazy coincidence, the band's backup singer Everett Bradley is an old friend from college.)

I think the docuseries captures Bon Jovi's skill at leading the group through challenges musical and otherwise — from metal's slow fade off the pop charts to the rise of grunge rock — something the singer rarely gets credit for achieving.

Still, much of Thank You, Goodnight feels like an extended celebration of the band and its charismatic frontman, leavened by his earnest effort to regain control of his voice. If you're not a Bon Jovi fan, four episodes of this story may feel like a bit much (I'd recommend at least watching the first and last episodes.)

More than anything, the docuseries feels like an extended argument for something Bon Jovi has struggled to achieve, even amid million selling records and top-grossing concert tours – respect as a legendary rock band.

The audio and digital versions of this story were edited by Jennifer Vanasco .