Year: 2024

Directed by: Dominic Savage

Written by: Elliot Page and Dominic Savage

Starring: Elliot Page, Peter Outerbridge, Hillary Baack, Wendy Crewson, Andrew Bushell, David Reale

By Sarah Manvel

Quentin Crisp was a ground-breaking homosexual and a gay icon who found success as a raconteur of his unusual life experiences, including an unusual for-the-time openness about his sexuality and sex life. But despite making a living from telling stories, including the memoir The Naked Civil Servant, he also once declared that books were for writing and not for reading. This is a fascinating concept, not least because it implies that works for art are primarily therapeutic acts for the creator, and it’s the fact of their creation that counts instead of the impact it has on any audience. One wonders if this idea was going through the minds of Elliot Page and Dominic Savage when they decided to collaborate on “Close to You,” a movie about a Canadian trans man’s first homecoming after his transition. 

Now anyone who knows anything about Mr Page knows that this is his first part in a fictional film since 2017. In the meantime they have been one of the most high-profile people globally to correct their gender identity, which was made public in late 2020. This means “Close to You” would be receiving an unusual amount of attention even if the storyline didn’t hew so closely to the public narrative about Mr Page’s life. So it’s doubly unfortunate that the end result is clearly a therapeutic exercise instead of an enjoyable film. 

Sam (Mr Page) hasn’t seen his family in several years although they live less than a hundred miles apart and are in regular contact. He rents a room from a friend in Toronto and has decided to return to his hometown for the first time since his transition for his father Jim’s (Peter Outerbridge) birthday. On the train he bumps into Katherine (Hillary Baack), who he dated in high school and hasn’t seen in a long time. Katherine already knew the news about Sam, of course, but their tentative connection for Sam is a great distraction from the drama in the family home. 

The tensions are so palpable that Sam never takes off his hat, a red beanie, and half the time also keeps his coat on indoors. His mother Miriam (Wendy Crewson) collapses in tears every time she misgenders Sam, and Jim expresses concern about Sam’s financial status and so-called failure to launch in the way his siblings have. The siblings themselves blur slightly into the background behind two brothers-in-law, the cheerful Steven (Andrew Bushell) and the unpleasant Paul (David Reale). And it’s in the family interactions that the therapeutic purpose of this film becomes clear, because it’s painfully obvious that the conversations were improvised without any sense of a plot. The family is so beside themselves with anxiety about being kind to Sam that they’re suffocating instead. But the worst part is how inarticulate and incoherent the dialogue is. It either flips between highly staged arguments or stuttering chat in which the words ‘fine’ and ‘good’ are repeated so many times that they lose all meaning. We don’t even learn what birthday it is of Jim’s or why this is the time over all others that Sam needed to come home (if he wanted to borrow some money, for example). But despite the family repeatedly telling Sam they want him to be comfortable, they also tolerate an incredible amount of rudeness from Paul and expect Sam to do the same. 

This means the tentative steps Sam and Katherine start taking towards each other are a blessed relief, and it’s obvious that their scenes together had more direction than anything else in the movie. But the fact is that Katherine’s not-to-be-spoiled identity will be the problem in their relationship, and it’s a shame that the movie’s not remotely interested in unpacking what personal ramifications that will have for both of them. 

It’s been a while since a director has done such sloppy and unfocused work and then boasted about it. At BFI Flare Dominic Savage told the audience that many of the takes they shot were nearly an hour in length. It’s therefore clear that the editor, David Charap, deserves enormous credit for whipping “Close to You” into any shape at all. Hopefully now that Mr Page has gotten this out of his system his next roles will focus on his talent instead of his identity.

One final thing. While it’s excellent that Katherine’s disability is accepted without becoming a plot point, it’s disappointing that the movie relies on cliché in how it portrays the only non-white member of the family.