Deborah Ross

Devastating: Close reviewed

Take tissues

Rémi (Gustav De Waele) and Léo (Eden Dambrine)

The Belgian film Close, written and directed by Lukas Dhont, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and is up for an Oscar, is a coming-of-age-story that’s exquisite and heart-breaking. Take tissues, and probably not just the one box.

I was deeply touched by their little white vests, purchased no doubt from the Belgian equivalent of M&S

Dhont’s starting point was psychologist Niobe Way’s book Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection, which is based on hundreds of interviews and showed that boys have deeply intimate, confiding friendships until adolescence when they are socialised to withdraw from one another.

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