Dominic Savage won a Bafta for his collaboration with Kate Winslet on Channel 4′s I Am series, an anthology that allowed the writer-director to craft episodes around a group of actors that also included Letitia Wright and Lesley Manville. That method underpins Close to You, Elliot Page’s first feature film since transitioning, in which the actor plays Sam, a young trans man returning to Canada to see his family for the first time in four years. It’s complicated: “It’s like I owe them so much,” he says.
The dazzling young star of Juno and Whip It has matured into a fine actor. There’s a palpable vulnerability from the earliest scenes when Sam encounters his former high-school girlfriend, Katherine (movingly played by Page’s The East costar Hillary Baack), on the train to Lake Ontario. Rawness and heavy improvisation yield mixed results when Sam arrives at his parents’ house.
The familiarity and strangeness of the journey home, a theme beloved by novelists, is amplified by new pronouns and vocabulary. Sam’s mother, Miriam (Wendy Crewson), chastises herself for accidentally calling him “her” and struggles with memories of her little “girl”. Mostly, it’s a safe place. Sam’s father (Peter Outerbridge) cites his bravery and recalls Sam’s unhappy, pretransitioned life.
The film’s most powerful scene is ushered in by disingenuous commentary from Sam’s transphobic brother-in-law, Paul (David Reale). It’s too much for the protagonist, who storms out of the house and seeks out Katherine. That relationship feels sweetly authentic and is beautifully shot by the cinematographer Catherine Lutes.
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Sadly, the budding romance lacks the dramatic heft and uneasiness of Sam’s parental home, where everyone tries too hard to articulate the right (or wrong) thing. “You weren’t this worried about me when I was actually not okay,” Sam tells his well-meaning relatives.
Page’s closeness to the material grafts a fascinating biographical dimension to this intimate drama. The story may lack conflict and clout. But it’s great to see Page back on the big screen.
Close to You is in selected cinemas from Friday, August 30th
