Close To You Review: BFI Flare Festival 2024

Elliot Page returns home for an awkward family reunion in Close To You

Sam (Elliot Page) wakes up in Toronto preparing to take a journey he really doesn’t want to take. It’s his father’s birthday dinner and he’ll be heading back to his hometown for the first time in four years, his first visit post-transition as a trans man. Sam complains that while they accept him on the surface, he still feels like an outsider in a family that has made no attempt to understand him and considers him a ‘screw up.’

On the train back he meets Katherine (Sound of Metal’s Hillary Baack,) his former high school best friend and something of an old flame. The two instantly feel the spark of connection, and their complicated feelings for each other are rekindled despite the very different journeys they have taken as adults.

Close To You is essentially just a series of conversations between Sam and the people in his life he had lost touch with, ranging from awkward, to affirming, to confrontational. It’s the first overseas film for British writer and director Dominic Savage who specializes in guiding his casts in improvisational work, a technique he has utilized again here. While the story was co-written by Savage and Page, a large amount of the dialogue is improvised.

The improvisational approach in Close To You yields mixed results. Page absolutely shines in the role of Sam, delivering an organic performance that draws on clearly very personal emotions. He has the natural grace and fluidity to pull out some great lines during big scenes without them feeling contrived or like preprepared ‘zingers.’ Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the whole cast, some of whom have sticky moments during one-on-one scenes where it feels like the actors are still workshopping an unfinished script.

There are some terrific moments within the family home, with little sparks of closure and growth mixed among arguments that cement Sam’s concern that his family really don’t understand him at all. Sam is constantly challenged about whether he is truly happy with his new life in the city – causing him at one point to snap that they never really cared when he was miserable at home, so why do they care so much now? There’s a familiarity here for anyone who has chosen to live a life different in some way to that of their parents – a learned need to defend oneself and one’s life that transcends purely the queer or trans experience.

Close To You rather loses momentum during the last half hour or so when it moves away from the family drama to focus on Sam’s reconnection with Katherine. The relationship feels underwritten, with some very bland dialogue that doesn’t match up to the intensity of their longing stares at each other. It’s hard to have any investment in this relationship or feel any worthwhile connection to their history, particularly when the family drama of the earlier scenes has been left unresolved.

If Close To You had cut out all the rest and left purely the family reunion segment that lies at its centre it could have made a rather excellent short film, however as a whole it’s a rather patchy effort. Still, Elliott Page is a tremendous talent delivering an honest, heartfelt performance here. While I’ve loved watching him mature as an actor in The Umbrella Academy these last few years, it’s truly exciting to have him back on the big screen.

Close To You is playing from 14th March 2024 as part of the BFI Flare Film Festival, wider release details have yet to be announced

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