Review: Close To You

Official synopsis: When he returns home for his father's birthday, Sam (Elliott Page) finds that his family is struggling to accept his transition.

While he did not pen the screenplay, Elliott Page is credited with the story. You can tell Page himself has lived some of these experiences. Sam is going back to his small Canadian home town, presumably the same way Page did himself, and dealt with different reactions to his transition. Because of this, I'm affording the film a little more grace. When someone has lived this, it becomes more than stilted dialogue and stock characters. I can appreciate the heart and the struggle, even though I would not call this a "great" film.

I feel like I keep assigning caveats to Close To You. It feels like a first feature, with the score being the same few notes played over and over, but surely that's because there's not many studios willing to put up the budget for this? The dialogue is at times feels like the characters are talking to the audience, and not each other. But again, Elliott lived this. He's likely relaying a version of real conversations that he had. Hillary Baack is a great actress, and it's nice to see her in a role that is not about her deafness, but she and Elliott are meant to be high school sweethearts and they absolutely do not pass as peers. But it's a deaf actress getting an opportunity. How can I note applaud that?

I think I just wanted to like this more. Especially for it being my first time seeing Elliott as his authentic self on screen (I don't want The Umbrella Academy) I wanted it to be more, but the story was very by the books and the age difference between Baack and Page was distracting when it so easily could've been fixed. They literally could've removed the line where they went to school together and had just been friends in a previous life. Easy. 

I continue to look forward to what Page does next. I'm glad this film exists, because it clearly means a lot to everyone involved, but I just didn't love it. Close To You is now available to stream on Netflix.

Grade: C+