Riley Review: BFI Flare Festival 2024

A high school football star grapples with his sexuality in coming-of-age drama Riley

Dakota Riley (Jake Holley) is the star player of a small-town high school football team. With a loving girlfriend, tight friend group and multiple offers of college scholarships on the table it seems like Riley has everything going for him. Yet his hidden sexuality is beginning to threaten both his place on the team and his relationships with those around him.

Careening between awkward dates with his girlfriend, internet hookups and a secret affair with an out gay classmate; Riley is desperate to have some sort of defining experience. A moment that will quash all his questioning and settle his identity once and for all. But as his behaviour becomes more erratic and draws the attention of others, it threatens to bring his life crashing down around him.

Riley is the debut feature from American writer/director Benjamin Howard and is heavily autobiographical, with the filmmaker stating that around 90% of the story is lifted directly from situations he experienced as a closeted teen football player. It a big screen debut too for lead actor Holley, and the two work in tandem to bring a wonderful air of authenticity to the much loved but often fantastical coming of age genre. This is a subtle and moving work.

Where the story might feel familiar – right down to the overbearing, demanding father/coach combo who could have been lifted out of any CW teen show – Riley takes a fresh approach in making so much of its lead characters struggle internal. It’s not really a coming out story, we’re not there yet, but rather a story about self-acceptance as this character struggles to come to terms with the fact that he is not the person he thought he was going to be when he grew up, and certainly not the person society told him he should be. It’s a universal feeling that will appeal to a broad audience.

The dichotomy of his situation as a star athlete is captured brilliantly as well. Being a football player should be the ideal cover for a kid questioning their sexuality, right? In the toxically masculine world of men’s sports no one questions the stars like they might do with people in the arts. No one would assume they were gay. Yet faced with the agonising ordeal of being in a locker room that’s just as homoerotically charged as I always assumed they were – we quickly learn that football is not the place for Riley to hide from unwanted thoughts.

My only quibble with this very accomplished debut feature is it’s Grease reminiscent casting – many of these actors are visibly far too old to be playing teenagers. It’s hard to argue with Holley’s performance as leading man though, he turns in a brilliantly layered performance as Riley. His ability to code switch between hyper masculine athlete when playing it straight and achingly vulnerable lost soul when exploring his sexual relationships is what successfully makes an internalised journey easy to follow, without the need for any brash blow ups or explosive declarations to achieve its end message.

Howard uses a deeply personal story to touch on universal themes of acceptance, belonging and identity. Riley is a well spent 93 minutes with not a single wasted scene, an angsty but quietly hopeful coming of age story that is sure to have mass appeal, it’s authentic story telling marks an exciting debut for this new director.

Riley is screening as part of the BFI Flare Film Festival, wider release details are yet to be confirmed

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