Close to You

Co-written by director Dominic Savage alongside star and producer Elliot Page, Close to You sees Sam (Page) return to Toronto for his father’s birthday. It’s the first time that Sam has been back since his transition, and he’s understandably reluctant to reunite with his parents and siblings, afraid of how they’ll react. On the train back to his small hometown he bumps into an old friend, Katherine (Hillary Baack), and an old spark is reignited. As Sam clashes with some less-tolerant relatives, his encounters with Katherine become a space where he can escape the chaos and be happy.

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.

Part of this is due to the mixed success of the improvised dialogue. Though the intent was likely to create a naturalistic feeling, the result is more often the opposite. Page is best able to react on the spot to the lines the other actors feed him without losing the momentum of the scene. It’s his emotionally charged challenges to thinly veiled transphobic remarks that make for the most powerful moments in the movie. However, some of the other actors aren’t as proficient with improvising as Page. Consequently, many scenes become a jumble of actors talking over each other without seeming to know what to do. It’s stilted and awkward, and ultimately detracts from the story Page and Savage want to tell.

Another of this feature’s issues is that it doesn’t know how to handle Sam and Katherine’s romantic subplot. Alongside the pair sharing very little onscreen chemistry together, the scenes with them together are few and far between and never move the narrative forward in meaningful ways. It’s only towards the end that something substantial happens between the pair, and even then the move comes from out of nowhere. Again, it’s Page’s committed performance that manages to breathe a degree of humanity into these instances.

Despite Page effortlessly carrying most of this film on their own, Close to You, unfortunately, misses the mark because of mishandled improv and a subplot that could have been cut.

Andrew Murray

Close to You does not have a release date yet. For more information about BFI Flare, visit their website here.