SUBLET

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

If you like movies that feature almost exclusively characters hanging out and talking, having interesting conversations, then Sublet is the kind of movie for you. That is, if you also find the contextualization of gay queer characters exploring Tel Avid compelling. That contextualization aside, if you’re not into “talky” movies, then this is one you’ll want to avoid. It’s all a matter of cinematic preference, really.

I quite enjoyed it. Sublet is directed and co-written by Eytan Fox, who has a history of exploring queer character in his films. He did the 2002 film Yassi & Jagger, a gay romance between two Israeli soldiers; he also directed the phenomenal film Walk on Water, about a bereft Israeli widower hit man who befriends a gay German tourist with the intent of gathering information about his Nazi war criminal grandfather, which wound up being my fourth-favorite film of 2005.

Fox is not especially prolific—he hasn’t directed a feature film since 2013—but he clearly has talent. That said, Sublet feels like a smaller film than some of his earlier works, at least in terms of production, theme, and ambition. That’s no major reflection on its quality; sometimes a story benefits a great deal from stripping down to simplicity. And even this film has its share of layers and nuance.

It’s the story of a short term relationship between men of two very different generations. We never learn the respective ages of Michael (John Benjamin Hickey), a New York Times travel writer visiting Tel Aviv for five days, and Tomer (Niv Nissim), the young man from whom he sublets his apartment and who winds up showing him around the city. But, we can find the ages of the actors, which are 57 and 27, respectively. That’s a thirty-year difference—an almost shockingly wide difference now that I consider it with actual numbers. It could be argued that the most impressive achievement of Sublet is that for most of its run time it depicts this relationship as platonic, until it isn’t. But it’s never creepy or especially salacious; in fact it’s surprisingly sweet. I can think of few, if any, other movies that manage to make such a relationship feel totally acceptable and natural.

Part of it is that the relationship is very brief, by design: Michael and Tomer only know each other for five days. Michael has a partner back in New York, and is processing a tragic event that occurred recently in their lives. Tomer actively avoids labels, which is why I hesitate to call him “gay” but he definitely qualifies as queer; he has idealistic ideas of living without any constraints of monogamy or even commitment. There’s a uniquely realized scene in which Tomer invites another young man over via “the Israeli Grindr,” as he puts it, “for both of us,” and ultimately it qualifies as the one sex scene in the film. It’s the kind of scenario in which one participant could easily be manipulating another, but it never comes across that way. At that point, though, Michael politely leaves the two younger men to each other, in that particular moment making the right decision.

Even this is a few days into Michael’s visit, his and Tomer’s connection developing organically. Fox introduces each day as the beginning of what becomes basically five chapters (“Day One,” etc). Tomer is intent on crashing on friends’ couches for the week, but Michael suggests he just stay at home and sleep on the couch, and in exchange Tomer will serve as his tour guide to see “the real” Tel Aviv for his travel piece.

As the story thus progressed, I was reminded of the Before Sunrise films, with such a focus on two characters forging a connection through a succession of intellectually stimulating conversations. The themes and topics covered in the Before Sunrise films are far denser than they are here, but it’s broadly the same idea. And in contrast to the Richard Linklater films, Eytan Fox throws in minority sexuality and cross-generational ideas and ideals. It makes for very compelling viewing, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I very much am. At times, the acting in Sublet feels slightly unrehearsed, but its well crafted script is its greatest strength. By the end, I was more moved than I might have expected to be at the start. That kind of pleasant surprise is always a welcome turn of events.

Sometimes it’s not so hard to bridge the gap.

Overall: B+

[available VOD, $4.99.}]

HATING PETER TATCHELL

Directing: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

How have I never heard of Peter Tatchell? This guy has been a notorious international queer rights activist for fifty-three years. Sadly, from the point of view of an American like myself, the answer is almost certainly just that: the American exceptionalism that pervades domestic media, to the exclusion of most international news. I never heard of him because he’s not an American. Maybe also because he’s 69 years old, and much of his most notorious protest stunts occurred before I was born or when I was a child.

All that said, Tachtell is a divisive person, even amongst those whose rights he fights for. By that measure alone, though, the documentary Hating Peter Tatchell, now streaming on Netflix, justifies itself. This guy may not be American, but he’s still an English speaker and a white man, originally from Melbourne Australia, and thus came into the world with a key type of privilege. I would argue that he has weaponized that privilege for the greater good, but I would not necessarily fault anyone for disputing such a claim.

For instance: is there a “white savior” element to Peter Tatchell’s antics? This is a guy who twice attempted a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for human rights abuses and torture, the first incidence of which turned the tide of public opinion in the UK over to his side. Mugabe is far from Tatchell’s only target, however, and it seems clear that, in Tatchell’s mind, his activism is purely egalitarian. He has engaged in civil disobedience on multiple continents, including a stand-in in solidarity with the gay community in Russia during the World Cup in Moscow in 2018, the video documents of which basically serve as the climactic sequence of this film. After footage of him being beaten multiple times in multiple places at other protests around the world beforehand, it actually winds up slightly anticlimactic. Not that I wanted him to get further beaten or anything.

The thing is, sure, you could say that Peter Tachell eager for attention. But that’s precisely what his brand of confrontational activism is designed to do, and his effectiveness at shining light on human rights abuses the world over cannot be denied. If the very bishop whose nationally televised sermon he disrupted twenty years ago can now be seen skirting stunningly close to comparing Tatchell’s conviction and work to that of Jesus, the guy must be doing something right. People for decades accused Tatchell of being counterproductive to the cause, but it’s literally because of people like him that progress has ever leapt forward.

There’s no question, the man is a complicated figure, and the bias in Hating Peter Tatchell is pretty transparent: the intent is only to paint a flattering picture, even as writer-director Christopher Amos includes interviews with people who criticize Tatchell’s tactics.

I fairly easily found myself on Tatchell’s side for the bulk of this film. This is a guy whose worldview much more closely matches that of the original Stonewall rioters than many young queer people today; I found myself thinking about the ridiculous recent discourse regarding whether people should be allowed to wear fetish gear at Pride Parades because it’s “not family friendly.” (They should.) Pride is about freedom of self-expression, and if anyone embodies that notion, it’s Peter Tatchell—even though he’s disarmingly unassuming, the antithesis of flamboyant, usually wearing a button-down shirt and a tie. But, he’s also always a part of disruptive protest, never taking credit but always taking part and often a key organizer.

But . . . well, there’s aways a but, I suppose. I was struck by the language Tatchell uses in his interview for this film, always always saying “LGBT+” when some years ago he might have just said “gay.” He’s clearly conscious of the evolving nature of identity politics, but a small detail during the end credits didn’t sit that well with me. Some might consider this nitpicky, and that’s fine: a slideshow of still photos of Tatchell at various protests runs alongside the credits, two of which feature either Mugabe or the Pope in drag queen-like makeup. They read ROBERTA MUGABE: QUEEN OF TYRANNY, and POPE “BETTY” BENEDICT XVI. This is clearly intended as humiliation by feminizing them, and . . . is that not transphobic?

Google “Peter Tatchell” and “transphobic” and you won’t get a lot of relevant hits, but you’ll find a few, including a letter Tatchell once signed along many others defending the right of trans-exclusionary feminists to speak on college campuses. It should be noted that he did not defend their views, but their right to express them, and that’s where things get sticky. That doesn’t mean they aren’t relevant, however, and although I hesitate to say this issue warrants direct examination in the film, the inclusion of the photos with those signs at the very least seems ill-advised.

But then, this all gets right back to the central question about Tatchell as an activist figure, and his many tactics people have disagreed with. You might not like everything he does or says, but if this film is any indication, it’s hard to deny that by and large he’s been wildly successful at meeting his goals. This is his life’s work, and I would argue he should be celebrated, warts and all. It also doesn’t mean he’s above criticism.

The person interviewing Tatchell in this film is none other than Sir Ian McKellen, and another one of the interviewees is Stephen Fry. Many other well-known UK activists are included as well, and Hating Peter Tatchell paints a very compelling, if maybe a little rosy picture of his life and achievements. It would be hard to see this film and not want to shift right into your own debates, which is maybe a good thing. As long as it’s in good faith, these are things we should always be discussing, and Tatchell is one of the guys keeping those discussions going.

I mean . . . nobody’s perfect.

Overall: B+

DANCE OF THE 41

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: A
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

I sure wish it were easier to find out how Dance of the 41 (title in original Spanish: El Baile de los 41) is being received in its native Mexico. Perhaps this will change slightly over time, but at the moment I can find only one review written in English, and I am no longer fluent enough in Spanish to read the few reviews I have found in Spanish. There is no page for this film at MecaCritic.com, although over on RottenTomatoes.com it has a “fresh rating” of 75%, based on all of four reviews collected. (Actually all it’s officially showing is the user rating of 73%, the four critic reviews not enough in number to warrant an official “tomatometer” rating.)

I am here to tell you, though: this is a movie that commands attention. It deserves to be seen, and you should watch it. It’s streaming on Netflix, giving it a platform it could get few other places, so what excuse do you have? It does center around a 1901 event that became an enduring flash point in the history of queer people in Mexico, which, let’s face it, inevitably means it does not end well. You might want to brace yourself for the emotional gut-punch of the very last shot, in fact. You should still watch it.

The inevitably sad fate of the people involved notwithstanding, there is a lot to love about Dance of the 41. On a superficial level, the costuming and production design are impeccable; this is a visually lush period piece. I can’t imagine a huge amount of money was spent on this film’s production, but nothing that made it onscreen looks cheap. In fact, director David Pablos was granted access to Mexico City’s Casa Rivas Mercado for filming, a cultural center featuring the late 19th century architecture of the time.

There’s some pretty frank and occasionally explicit sex in this movie, both straight and gay—with quite a lot of male nudity. I say this not to be salacious, which this film really isn’t. When the Mexican president’s son-in-law, Ignacio de la Torre (Alfonso Herrera) introduces Evaristo (Emiliano Zurita) to the secret gay society to which he belongs, we eventually discover that they gather not just for high-society socializing, schmoozing and drinking and playing billiards, but also for orgies. What I love about how Pablos frames this is that it is always without judgment. Whether it’s a bunch of gay men sucking and fucking in a large room with a bunch of bathtubs, or an incredibly tender love scene between Ignacio and Evaristo alone in a bedroom, all Pablos seems interested in is showcasing queer joy. This applies to far more than just the sex; a key element of the historical event when one of these society parties gets raided by the police—in a man’s private home—is that half of them were dressed in drag. And until the raid, we just see a group of people being free to be their authentic selves, and it’s a beautiful thing.

The flip side, then, is the relationship between Ignacio and his wife, Amada (an excellent Mabel Cadena)—then-Mexican president Porfirio Díaz’s daughter. In an early scene, we see these two having sex for the first time on their wedding night, and it is one of the most awkward sex scenes I have ever seen committed to film. It’s rare we see this kind of scene, and I found myself thinking about how common it must have been in real life throughout history (and for some people, still is), for the poor women who marry men who are incapable of desiring them sexually. Given how easily this can breed (so to speak) resentment in such women, I think it will be easy for some to think of Amada as a villain here. It’s an easy trap that should be resisted, as it’s much more nuanced than that. I found myself sympathizing with Amada every bit as much as I did Ignacio.

Dance of the 41 takes a fascinating, contextualized look at a horrible moment in Mexican history—which I only learned about for the first time about a month ago, on TikTok. It’s apparently the reason many Mexicans have a negative association with the number 41 (and 42), with many in contemporary queer culture reclaiming them. This film, however, says little to nothing about the lasting cultural impact of the event, and focuses instead on the event itself, humanizing the people involved. Ignacio de la Torre was a real historical figure and rumored to have been at the event; it was always 42 people there, but the president, clearly wanting to avoid any association with it, had his son-in-law removed from persecution.

There is a brief sequence in the film depicting the horrible public humiliation endured by the other 41 people at the event, and it is indeed difficult to watch. Thankfully, Pablos neither dwells on it nor sensationalizes it, although he does allow enough time to challenge the viewers with the horror of it, which is only right and proper. Still, what sticks in your mind once the film is over, gut wrenching as the parting shot might be, is the far greater amount of time spent on the drama and romance leading up to it. In effect, most of this story is a love triangle, between two gay men and the wife of one of them. I really can’t recommend it enough, and really hope that word spreads that it’s worth seeing.

A lovely showcase for queer joy … until it isn’t: either way, a must-see.

Overall: A-

SIFF Advance: SUMMER OF 85

Directing: C+
Acting: B
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

I suppose it’s refreshing to see a movie about young gay men in the 1980s that doesn’t focus on AIDS, or even mention it. We’ve all had more than our fair share of that. Whether we need what Summer of 85 offers up instead is a different question.

This is a gay love story, and still a sad one, but also sweet, and then, just plain odd. Young Alexis and David (Félix Lefebvre and Benjamin Voisin) are teenagers falling in love as they contemplate whether to finish school or move into the work force. And, as the narrative cuts back and forth between the present-day legal trouble Alexis is in, and the back story of their affair, it becomes clear why Alexis is in trouble. It has to do with a promise David made him make.

This promise is the crux of the whole plot in Summer of 85, and it is also the film’s central problem, the reason it falls apart upon even the slightest inspection. Even though I would not recommend anyone watch this movie, I still won’t spoil it—maybe you still want to find out for yourself. Suffice it to say that the promise is utterly ridiculous. To be fair, that is clearly David’s intent: something he wants Alexis to do should he ever die. After tragedy strikes, Alexis takes the promise seriously, and director François Ozon, adapting from a novel by Aidan Chambers (you can look it up; the title of the novel is the spoiler) plays it for serious, dramatic effect. It doesn’t work, however: playing the scene as a moving fulfillment of a young lover’s promise doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

Until that happens, the development of a romantic and physical relationship between these two young, cute gay men is genuinely sweet. But, then it takes some bizarre turns—even before the “promise” is carried out (which, by the way, gets Alexis arrested). Suddenly Alexis is visiting a morgue disguised as a young woman. Wait, what? This left-field bit of cross-dressing is something I would hesitate to judge as “insensitive,” but it’s still a weird choice. When it comes to the writing and direction, it might still qualify as clueless.

There are other odd moments early on, which perhaps should serve as warning signs of strange turns to come. When Alexis’s sailboat capsizes and David rescues him—this is how they meet—David takes him home. This is where Alexis meets David’s widowed mother, who not only insists Alexis take a hot bath, but even insists on undressing him herself. She pulls his pants down, the camera behind him so we see his bare ass, and she is knelt in front of him so that she is suddenly gawking at his penis. “Your mother can be proud,” she says. There is nothing sexual suggested beyond this, and it seems as though it’s just meant to be a throwaway gag. And I . . . just don’t get it. Granted, this is a French film and the French have a different and more open sensibility, but, I have to wonder if even the French would think this scene in any way moves the story forward. (It doesn’t.)

I was willing to overlook this scene in the first half of the film because, at first, it seemed to be an anomaly in an otherwise sweet movie. Then a mutual young lady friend of Alexis and David, who becomes in essence part of a love triangle between them, helps him dress up as a girl in disguise to visit David’s body in a morgue. Wait, what? Alexis’s grief causes him to behave in very strange ways, which is a normal part of grief to be sure, but Summer of 85 takes it to unusual extremes.

Then, he’s researching Jewish burial traditions—this is how we learn David’s family is Jewish—and things just get more uncomfortable from there. By the time Alexis is delivering on David’s deliberately ridiculous promise, I found myself laughing out loud. Not because the scene is funny, as it is absolutely not intended to be, but because it is utterly preposterous. I have not read the novel on which this is based, but it’s easy to imagine this playing out in a more successfully moving way in written prose. Actually watching it, there’s just no way to avoid being taken right out of the movie. Like: why the hell am I watching this?

The two main actors are decent performers, doing what they can with this script that takes a while to reveal its own insanity. I suppose it might have been better if, for instance, Félix Lefebvre had some other talents. Summer of 85 might have been at least somewhat improved if he were—spoiler alert!—a better dancer.

All of this could have been avoided if he had just worn a helmet!

Overall: C+

SIFF Advance: POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA

Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B-
Editing: C+

Potato Dreams of America is a locally produced film with a small budget, and it shows. I don’t say that to shit on it, because I actually enjoyed a lot of it, but I think it’s also a bit of fair warning, to viewers for whom that might be a barrier to entry into the story. And this is tricky, criticizing a movie that is a clear passion project by a writer-director who is telling an acutely personal, largely autobiographical story. There is no doubt that this film means a great deal to the people who worked on it, and especially writer-director Wes Hurley.

It’s certainly a story worth telling. There are just some challenges in execution, particularly in the first half, which is set in Vladivostok, the Russian west-coast city where the title character (as well as Hurley) is from. The production is highly stylized, giving it a feel rather like watching a well-designed local play. Unfortunately, with one notable exception, these “play” scenes are filled with supporting actors who give distractingly wooden performances.

The exception would be Lea LeLaria, easily the most famous person in this cast, here cast wildly against type as Potato’s uptight and conservative grandmother. She loses herself in the role so effectively, it took me a while before I even realized it was her. Still, these scenes could have used some tightening up in editing. Some of these scenes feel like Hurley decided he didn’t need very many takes. (For all I know, he didn’t have time for a lot of takes.) In one memorable shot, DeLaria’s grandma casually twirls a shotgun with her index finger, and the shot that’s used doesn’t even show it twirling very well. As a result, the vibe of the production becomes somewhat amateurish.

But, here’s a compelling concept: Hurley cast different actors for Potato’s family in Russia vs. his family in America, after he and his mother move to Seattle so his mother, Lena, can get married and in so doing escape post-Soviet Russia. Potato is much younger in the Vladivostok half of the film, and played by a boy named Hersh Powers; in the Seattle half, he’s played as an older teenager by a young man named Tyler Bocock. Bocock’s peformance is nuanced in a way unlike almost anyone else in the film, and he’s easily the best actor in it; I might even say he saves it. The woman who plays his unconditionally supportive mother, Lena, in Seattle (Marya Sea Kaminski), comes close.

Also, curiously, Lena and Potato speak with American accents in the Vladivostok half, and they speak with Russian accents in the Seattle half. This effectively highlights their “otherness” as a family unit in both contexts, although the delivery is more successful in the latter half.

“Potato,” incidentally, is just the nickname Lena has given him—one of the fictions added to an otherwise true story, according to Hurley just to help give himself some distance and see Potato as a character and not just as himself. There’s a bit of a shocking twist in the last act of the film regarding Potato’s American stepfather, which would be easy to dismiss as implausibly contrived, except apparently it’s actually part of his true story. There is a nice, organically multi-ethnic sense of intersectionality to Hurley’s story, with a bit of both lesbian and trans representation. Also, Potato’s circumstances are very specific, while the essence of his story, and its relatability, is universal. The semi-flamboyant imaginary-friend Jesus is a nice touch.

To be fair, some of the script, and particularly the dialogue, really is controvied—oversimplified representation of conservative talking points, particularly mirroring how they speak now rather than twenty or thirty years ago. (This is just my own pet peeve so I’ll forgive it, but a few shots of the Seattle skyline meant to be decades ago are clearly far too contemporary—but, we already established this is a small production. I’m sure there were no resources for making composite images of Seattle of the past.)

Potato Dreams of America isn’t quite as “quirky” as the title might suggest, although the film certainly does have its quirks. A lot of it, particularly in the first half, has some unrealized potential that bogs it down a little—but, by the end, it still spoke to me.

I’d like to see more of this potato.

Overall: B-

THE CAKEMAKER

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Here is a truly rare film that refuses to put a person's sexuality into a clearly defined category, places no judgment on it, and makes some room for the joy in it. Being a bit removed from typical American puritanism, as a joint Israeli-German production, probably has something to do with that. The Cakemaker, as the title might suggest, also features so many luscious shots of pastries that my mouth is still watering as I write this.

Far more sensual than erotic, this movie really takes its time, but in a way that lets you settle gradually into it, this world of characters who all have a somewhat deadpan delivery, at least until a key moment when one of them breaks down sobbing. These sorts of performances can be difficult to gauge, and are often typical of independent or foreign films. Do none of these people just act like normal, chill people? They're all sort of waiting quietly, perhaps for their moment, when they do something deceptively minor but specifically consequential.

The Cakemaker of the title, named Thomas (Tim Kalkhof, a curiously attractive bit of beefcake), is certainly the most calculated in this endeavor. He runs a cafe in Berlin, where he embarks on an affair with a married Israeli man, Oren (Roy Miller), who comes to Berlin from Jerusalem once a month or so for work. But when Oren dies in a car crash in Jerusalem, Thomas takes off for Jerusalem and, without them knowing who he is, gradually befriends Oren's widow Anat (Sarah Adler, also in this year's excellent Foxtrot) and their son, Itai.

There is obvious historical tension in a relationship between an Israeli and a German, which writer-director Ofir Raul Graizer cultivates with effective subtlety. Perhaps my favorite thing about his layered script is how incidental the sexuality of the characters are. This story would play no differently if the affair were between a man and a woman. It just happens to be between a man and a man. Not one person in this movie ever even draws attention to that fact.

Instead, the prejudice on display is by Anat's brother Moti (Zohar Strauss), who bristles at a German working in the kitchen of Anat's certified-kosher cafe. Still, he gives Thomas a chance, offering him an apartment in the building he manages, and over a lengthy period of time, Thomas takes small steps toward relationship territory with Anat herself.

Now, I do have some questions. Who the hell is running Thomas's cafe back in Berlin? He tells us his parents are gone but not why, and that he was raised by his grandmother. is he independently wealthy? What small business owner can just go live in another country for an indeterminate period of time to pursue a bit of borderline skeevy stalking?

Maybe there's a sort of obsession going on, although The Cakemaker never makes that overtly clear. Does he simply want to become the man he was in love with and lost? Graizer refuses to spoon feed his audience, and okay, I can respect that. There's a couple of great scenes with Oren's mother that strongly suggest she knows what's up ("You knew my son?" she asks, innocently), but again, this is never made explicit.

As this story unfolded, I found myself deciding I would like it best if in the end, Thomas just lived the rest of his days as part of this new family with none of them being the wiser. The way it ends isn't exactly an inevitable alternative, but then, The Cakemaker ends without the satisfaction of a hard resolution.

There's that refusal to spoon feed us again. Graizer -- and Thomas -- are too busy with rolling pins in hand instead, letting tension build gradually and steadily, until a love triangle involving a dead man reveals itself to the living. It's fascinating -- and satisfying -- to see such sociopolitical elements explored in a movie that makes absolutely nothing of its inclusion of a same-sex relationship. I'm not even sure if there is any deliberate metaphorical strain to Thomas unwittingly using the oven in Anat's cafe at the wrong time, thereby threatening her kosher certification.

A fair focus is put on Anat and her family's Jewishness, and Anat's being comparatively non-religious, not eating kosher at home, only applying that to her cafe because it makes business sense. None is put on Thomas's religion, if he even has one; only his being German. Nothing even makes direct reference to Nazi history; Graizer lets the obvious speak for itself. His script, in fact, reveals itself to be more impressive upon further reflection -- a few burning questions notwithstanding. I'd have liked the performances to feel a little more natural, but, as with everything, I suppose that's a matter of taste.

Thomas lays it all out in Tim Kalkhof's flat performance.

Overall: B+

DISOBEDIENCE

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Disobedience is the kind of movie that moves relatively slowly, but the entire time, you can't take your eyes off of it. The opening scene is fairly memorable: an Orthodox rabbi gives a sermon touching on free will among both angels and beasts, right before he drops dead of a heart attack.

Rachel Weisz plays Ronit, the woman we soon learn was this rabbi's daughter. She's working as a photographer in New York when she gets the call; she heads home to her Jewish community in London immediately. It turns out, she hasn't been back in many years. When she reaches the house where a memorial is taking place, an old friend, Dovid (an effectively restrained Alessandro Nivola) answers the door and says to her, "We weren't expecting you."

What follows is a series of awkward encounters, person after person surprised to see Ronit there -- including Esti (an excellent Rachel McAdams), someone it takes Ronit a minute to realize is now married to Dovid. It seems they were all best friends, once upon a time.

Dovid, fully aware of a more complicated history that unfolds in due time, offers to let Ronit stay with him and Esti. Ronit's estrangement from her rabbi father is merely half the story, but certainly always relevant.

Disobedience thus reveals itself to be a love story unlike any other heretofore told. Surely we have seen plenty of same-sex love stories, and we have seen a few movies about strictly conservative Jewish families. We don't see a lot of movies combining the two, particularly with this particular brand of orthodoxy.

Today I learned that orthodox Jewish women often wear wigs, to conform to the religious requirement of covering their hair. Orthodox Jewish men cover their heads with a yarmulke; the women, evidently, have a sheitel. When Ronit arrives back at her Jewish community in London, all the other women around are clearly wearing these wigs, and if you know little about the faith, it's oddly distracting at first, until the film makes it a point of drawing attention to them.

Weisz, for her part, has a fantastic head of hair all her own, so it's nice she mostly keeps it uncovered. It's probably halfway through the film before her romantic past with Esti becomes explicitly clear, and before long they have a fairly explicit sex scene. At lest one thing happens between the two of them that baffled me, but then, I'm a gay man; the lesbian friend I saw it with had no particular insight either. Otherwise, though, even the sex scenes are integral to the story, a shift in the characters' journey rather than any means of simply titillating the audience.

In fact, Disobedience is impressive in its practice of giving the female characters both self-assurance and agency. Even in an ultraconservative context, once Esti is faced with the life choices she has made and where she is now, rather than shutting down and rolling over for her husband, her immediate instinct is to assert herself. It's a beautiful thing to see, especially given that the man, while struggling to come to terms with his own circumstances, respects her choices.

As such, this isn't a movie about shame, as you might expect, so much as it is about coming face to face with the consequences of your own choices early in life, and choosing how to deal with them now. Life is complicated, even more so when not exactly existing in the mainstream of society, and there is no manner of offering any neatly wrapped happy ending for these characters. Satisfying conclusions, though -- that's another matter.

The script, based on the novel of the same name by Naomi Alderman, more than once elicits the expectation of a pretty clichéd movie scene: running through an airport; catching up to a loved one in a taxi cab. In ever case, however, the story subtly turns in an unexpected direction, which is the basic nature of the entire story in Disobedience, a deeply affecting love story whose depth slowly sneaks up on you.

An un-Orthodox love triangle.

Overall: B+

LOVE, SIMON

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

The first line heard in Love, Simon is "I'm just like you," and, I would argue, that is a misstep. Granted, I'm a middle-aged gay man living in a world contextualized in a far different way than can safely be assumed of any of the young-adult audience this movie is clearly aimed at -- kids who, in all likelihood, don't even realize how radically different the world really is for them. Part of that extraordinary difference is the fact that, although this is a story about a gay teenager struggling with the coming-out process, that target audience includes young adults both gay and straight.

Should I say that my review is aimed more at people at minimum in their thirties, then? It may be a little unorthodox to refer to someone else's review in my own, but Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson wrote a great one, which I related to significantly -- much more so, as it happens, than I did to the movie itself. And yet, I also did not feel quite as disconnected from the film as that review left me expecting I would. Either way, I do find myself wondering how different a review might be from, say, a teen critic writing for their high school newspaper.

The cynic in me, a part of myself I have spent years trying to loosen up, wants to dismiss Love, Simon as a simple, gay fantasy. My own experiences prompt me to ask: In what world would a gay teenager have such an understanding family and such an accepting close circle of friends? Well, here's a novel idea: maybe the real world? Nowhere in Love, Simon is it suggested that all gay kids in 2018 America have the same kind of experience -- only that we do finally live in a world where some of them do, and that does not make their stories any less worth telling. Also: it's not for nothing that the world see even clearly privileged kids with wonderful parents struggle with the uncertainty of coming out.

I don't really subscribe to the criticism that Simon is problematically presented as "straight acting" -- director Greg Berlanti gives no indication that we're to assume all gay kids are like Simon; only that they do exist. This movie still shows us the slightly more stereotypical sort in the one other openly gay kid at Simon's school (Clark Moore, surprisingly subtle, all things considered), who is more effeminate and always at the ready with one-liner retorts. He is also far more self-assured than Simon is. In any case, here we see both ends of the spectrum.

Still, my opening statement still stands: Simon immediately telling us "I'm just like you" serves only to muddle all these points. The set-up is by far the most contrive part of Love, Simon, and comparisons of his family's home to the upper-middle-class home sets of Nancy Meyers movies are apt. I heard that phrase "I'm just like you" and immediately thought, Uh, no you're not. And here my response is quite realistically similar even to that of many kids a third my age -- plenty of kids grow up in families poor enough that their economic problems far overshadow social anxieties, or in families that closer resemble that of the TV show Roseanne (or, to update that to the 21st century, One Day at a Time) than that of Simon.

Simon's little sister (Talitha Bateman, just as adorable as this movie asks for) is an aspiring chef, regularly cooking elaborate meals for the entire family. This is just the most obvious of several things about Simon's family which, if not entirely ringing false, comes across as at least slightly off from realistic. 

And a lot of this set-up in the beginning is presented through countless awkward interactions. I don't do awkward very well: for about the first half-hour, I was squirming in my seat and averting my eyes from the screen more than I do at horror movies.

And then: somehow, Love, Simon coalesces, and proves surprisingly affecting. Suffice it to say that I was touched by it enough to cry several times, and if you're someone who would be interested in this movie to begin with, it would be wise to bring tissues. I may have wept at Simon's parents saying all the right things to him, but it was because I was so happy any gay kid could be so lucky -- it did not have the twinge of bittersweet wistfulness (something I feel regularly about the gay kids who have it better than I did) that I really expected.

Even better, Nick Robinson is well cast as the handsome semi-schlub who is the title character. The casting of his circle of friends barely falls short of feeling self-consciously diverse, but the performances all around make them feel authentic. I have been saying for decades that kids are smarter than adults tend to give them credit for, but I only just discovered they are also more sophisticated than I gave them credit for. The activist kids today working for gun control prove that much, if nothing else. None of that stuff comes into play in Love, Simon, but the real world currently shows us that, like the kids in this movie, kids are on average a lot more worldly than they used to be.

Nick Robinson is 22 years old, by the way -- and here he's playing 17. Funny, back in 2013's lovely The Kings of Summer he was eighteen, playing 15. I guess he's had a young face for a while. This kind of casting is often complained about, but it's only a problem if the actors' age is obvious. Robinson very much looks the part of a high schooler, and he plays one with true depth of understanding.

We are treated with Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel as Simon's doting parents devoid of judgment, and even if they are not likely "just like yours," they certainly fit the parts perfectly in Simon's world. The great thing about Love, Simon is how little noteworthy is its very existence -- another gay story devoid of what used to be obligatory tragedy. Boring is better than tragic, and although Simon's life is not all that exciting, his story is neither tragic or boring. Any story can be compelling if told the right way, and once both Simon and Love, Simon get past their awkward missteps, this story is as compelling as any -- perhaps for different reasons, but for audiences older and younger alike.

Overall: B+

TWIST Advance: SATURDAY CHURCH

Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-
Music: B+

Back in 2008, there was this thoroughly charming, coming-of-age / coming-out movie that was also a gay-themed musical, called Were the World Mine. Its music was so wonderful that I bought the soundtrack. Ah, those innocent -- or maybe ignorant -- cisgendered, white-centric days.

That's not to denigrate Were the World Mine in any way, as to this day I would eagerly recommend it to anyone. Its Shakespearean themes are magically interwoven into its story, and it remains a unique vision worthy of attention. But a lot of time has also passed since then, and we now live in a post-Tangerine world. In 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected, we lived in a time of naive hope. The 2017 Trump era underscores the need for attention to wider ranges of oppressed communities, and to intersectionality, and Saturday Church couldn't be coming at a better time.

Indeed, it should be very much considered a compliment to say that Saturday Church bears notable resemblance to Were the World Mine. It doesn't rip it off in any way, and neither is it literate in the same way -- rather, it expands upon similar concepts, and draws a clearer line between fantasy and reality, even as it indulges in fantastical musical numbers. These are all literal fantasies of its main character, Ulysses (Luka Kain, fairly new to feature films after some experience in both commercials and on Broadway, very well cast here), a young teenager withdrawing from the harsh real-world reactions to a budding interest in women's clothes.

With Saturday Church, writer-director Damon Cardasis is not preoccupied with gender identity, particularly when it comes to his main character. The hard-nosed Aunt Rose, recruited to look after Ulysses and little brother Abe (Jaylin Fletcher) in the wake of their father's death as their mother has to take on extra work, is the only one who makes a point of characterizing Ulysses as both "a black boy, and he's gay." But Aunt Rose, played by Regina Rose without much nuance perhaps because her character is the most one-dimensional, clearly doesn't know what she's talking about.

Ulysses takes the subway into Manhattan, encounters a group of young trans women, and gets invited to the Saturday Church of the title, inspired by a real-life church program for LGBTQ youth.  These transgender women, who are a few years older, takes Ulysses under their wing, along with a young boy, Raymond (Marquis Rodriguez), who develops a sweetly romantic interest. Neither he nor any of Ulysses's other new friends spend any time discussing labels -- an almost ironic notion, given that Saturday Church is one of very few films in which trans women of color are actually played by trans women of color: the only other notable one that comes to mind is, again, Tangerine. That said, for all their entertainingly jaded sarcasm, they prove to be real friends to Ulysses, very much encouraging the blossoming of interest in makeup and high heeled shoes.

In its way, Saturday Church is also a coming-out story, only within the context of gender variance. And make no mistake, there is some real emotional pain and some sexual trauma, a realistic reflection of what too many people go through in order to survive. This movie goes out of its way to reflect the stark realities of many trans women of color in particular, the wide range of attitudes toward sex work and the constraints on finding lasting relationships. What makes this movie truly stand apart is how it spends equal time on the unequivocal joys that can also be found along the journey of authentic self-discovery.

To say I found Saturday Church deeply moving would be an understatement. Sure, it made me laugh, it made me cry. It made me cry for multiple reasons. I shed tears for the familiar tensions Ulysses endured in the face of ignorant family members, contrived as they sometimes were. But for perhaps the first time at a movie with so much focus on transgender issues, I shed far more tears of joy, quite literally, as I watched a young person never specifically gendered find an authentic self.

The musical sequences, used both sparingly and effectively, are icing on the cake. Unlike a more conventional musical, where characters burst into song for no discernible reason, here the singing is always part of the main character's elaborate fantasies, which still grounds them in the real world. Compared to Were the World Mine, which I just can't help doing because the films are so similar in concept, the songs are not quite as good, the lyrics less refined or clever, but on average the vocal talent here is far better.  Saturday Church features some truly great singing, albeit paired with choreography that could have used a little more polish.

That said, any minor complaint I might have about it is nothing but nitpicking. It's all about the story, and even with at least one particularly one-note character, this story is deeply affecting. Saturday Church has charms all its own, unlikely to be forgotten for some time.

Luka Kain turns tragedy into beauty in Saturday Church.

Overall: A-

BEACH RATS

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

Here is a young actor to keep an eye out for: Harris Dickinson, who is a revelation in Beach Rats, as Frankie, a sexually repressed and confused teen living in Brooklyn. Dickinson is himself all of 20 years old, and grew up in London, and yet it's impossible to imagine any other actor better conveying the fine nuances of Frankie's complex range of emotions -- his self-doubt, his inner struggles, even his internalized homophobia.

Writer-Director Eliza Hittman unpacks this story with deceptive simplicity. She also ends it with a frustrating lack of any resolution whatsoever, something at once respectable and maddening. It's the one true complaint I might have about this film, the way it feels like it ends abruptly in the middle of Frankie's story. Being ambiguous is one thing; fading quickly to black at a seemingly random moment is quite another.

Until that end, however, Beach Rats is a uniquely compelling vision, Frankie systematically making your heart break for him. He hangs out with three straight "bro" types whose behaviors he emulates. It's only after an opening scene in which Frankie is on his computer trolling for older men that we find this out. And he meets a sweet girl (Madeline Weinstein) on the boardwalk while hanging out there with said friends. She complicates things as she makes bold moves in pursuit of Frankie, who has difficulty feigning arousal.

Beach Rats is unusually frank in its depictions of sex, no doubt made easier by its lacking of an MPAA rating. Just consider it a hard-R, considering the number of (flaccid) penises that flash on the screen -- several of them on Frankie's computer as he clicks through a Chat Roulette type site evidently local to Brooklyn. But whether they are of Frankie and Simone making fumbling attempts at physical intimacy, or Frankie and several older men he takes to the beach at night, all these scenes are tastefully shot.

The cinematography, in fact, is regularly hypnotic -- even shots of Frankie and his friends blowing smoke rings at a hookah bar. Beach Rats was shot by Hélène Louvart, who has a long resume but also shot Pina, the 2011 tribute to choreographer Pina Bausch that is arguably the single documentary in history that worked stupendously in 3D. Beach Rats employs a lot of handheld camera work which is seamlessly and beautifully integrated into the story.

That story takes a darker turn near the end, and that's after learning that his father is dying of cancer. He has a younger sister with her own interest in boys, and a mother with clearly too much on her emotional plate. Then Frankie and his friends hatch a plan to get drugs off one of the guys he finds on that website -- he convinces the guys that it's all he uses the site for. Frankie does a lot of drugs, including snorting pills he snatches from his father's prescriptions and crushes into powder.

Now all they want is weed. But in this endeavor, things get increasingly uncomfortable. A feeling builds, that this is going nowhere good. Where it heads is something that could have been worse. It could also be a lot better. Such is the case with Frankie. But if you're looking for either a definitive sign of hope or confirmation of hopelessness with this poor kid, you won't find either one of them here. Will his turmoil go on for the rest of his life? You might leave this movie just overcome with the wishful thinking that one day he'll be okay. That feeling is a credit to both the film's assured direction and Harris Dickinson's unsurpassed performance.

Harris Dickinson gives a uniquely heartbreaking performance in Beach Rats.

Overall: B+