A painful double meaning soon manifests in Belgian writer-director Lukas Dhont’s tender, sumptuously-shot Close, Grand Prix winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. At first, the title refers to the bond between Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele), the 13-year-old duo at the story’s centre, but eventually comes to signify its end when the boys’ friendship, and innocence, comes crashing down in this deeply moving drama.

Such profound dichotomy is neatly mirrored in the film’s two-act structure. The first – beginning with the boys racing through fields of flowers bathed in the orange glow of summer, creating elaborate imaginary battle scenes – serves as a delightful reminder of the freewheeling joy of early adolescence. Close basks in these moments of frivolity and intimacy, as the pair ride bikes together and sleep beside one another in each other’s bedrooms. And there is something beautifully subtle at play here, with Dhont’s camera capturing the warm smiles and wide-eyed gazes Léo and Rémi exchange, only ever hinting at the existence of deeper feelings.

It’s deft character work that makes the second half all the more agonising when the pressures of the playground – a group of girls ask if Léo and Rémi are a couple – begin to push the boys apart. Stung by the notion that their relationship could be seen as anything other than platonic in the eyes of his peers, Léo shuns his friend, even taking up ice hockey to convince others of his masculinity. For Rémi, it’s the ultimate act of betrayal, and one with tragic consequences.    

From there, Close becomes far less understated. The motifs – a fork in the road; a change in the seasons – are rather heavy-handed, while the heartbreaking twist struggles to shake the feeling of a narrative device. And yet the shift in tone, however, signposted, is no less affecting, aided in no small way by the magnetic performances of the film’s two young leads. Dambrine, in particular, with his glassy blue eyes that often belie his character’s faux-machismo, balances with quiet brilliance the internal turmoil of someone struggling to process feelings they may never quite be able to fully articulate. 

As a springboard for its cast, and indeed Dhont himself, Close excels. A touching and gorgeously made second feature, it succeeds in leaving as few dry eyes in the house as possible. And, in that sense, not many films this year will be quite as potent. 

Dir: Lukas Dhont (105 mins)

Close debuted in the UK at the 2022 London Film Festival 

words GEORGE NASH