A tender, devastating coming-of-age drama about boyhood intimacy, shame, and grief. It’s especially strong in its performances, visual sensitivity, and the way it captures how social pressure can rupture a friendship.
90% ★★★★★ (573,606)
Close
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · PG-13
2022 · 1h 44m · ★ 90% (573.6K)
Director: Lukas Dhont
Starring: Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Émilie Dequenne
Overview
Two 13-year-old boys spend an idyllic summer together, but their connection is put to the test when they become the subject of speculation at school.
Director
Lukas Dhont
Production
Menuet, Diaphana Films, Topkapi Films, Versus Production, VTM, RTBF
Cast
Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Émilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker, Igor van Dessel, Kevin Janssens, Marc Weiss, Léon Bataille, Serine Ayari, Robin Keyaert, Herman van Slambrouck, Iven Deduytschaver, Jeffrey Vanhaeren, Hélène Theunissen, Baptiste Bataille, Pieter Piron, Freya De Corte, Cachou Kirsch, Ahlaam Teghadouini, Hervé Guerrisi
Curator Review
Verdict
A tender, devastating coming-of-age drama about boyhood intimacy, shame, and grief. It’s especially strong in its performances, visual sensitivity, and the way it captures how social pressure can rupture a friendship.
Best for
viewers who like emotionally intense coming-of-age dramas
fans of quiet, performance-driven European cinema
audiences interested in themes of male friendship, grief, and social cruelty
people who appreciate restrained filmmaking that builds to a gut punch
Skip if
you want a plot-heavy or twisty drama
you prefer emotionally detached storytelling
you’re looking for an uplifting, easy watch
you dislike films centered on adolescent pain and social alienation
Overview
Close is one of those films that understands how much can be said without words. Lukas Dhont stages childhood with remarkable tact: the summer light, the physical closeness, the unspoken bond between the boys all feel lived-in rather than arranged. The result is a film that begins in warmth and gradually tightens into something far more painful.
Worth noting
What makes it hit so hard is its patience with feeling. It doesn’t reduce the boys’ friendship to a single label or issue; it treats their connection as tender, complicated, and vulnerable to the judgments of others. The performances are deeply affecting, especially in the way they register confusion, loyalty, and hurt before the characters can name any of it.
Bottom line
The film is not subtle about its emotional destination, but it is often beautiful in the journey there. Its grief is raw, but never cheap. Close lingers because it captures a brutal truth: growing up can mean learning how quickly innocence can be broken by the world around you.
Top Letterboxd reviews
i'm so yulia🦊 (4.5★) · 17628 likes
silence has rarely been this loud
Douglas Greenwood (5★) · 9328 likes
As a queer person, there is an age when sacrifice comes so easily because you've not yet figured out who you are, and so don't know who you need the most.
al pacino (4★) · 8507 likes
this movie can only be described as the most raw depiction of grief. how life still goes on but the pain is still there. it was shot beautifully. a real tear jerker but in the right way, a way that makes you feel human at the end.
bunnyboyworld (4.5★) · 8429 likes
A man turned to me at the end of this and goes “next time get tissues, you were very annoying”
nick (3.5★) · 5472 likes
Toxic masculinity is harmful. In Close, the tender, beautiful friendship between two teenage boys is put to test by a world hostile to male intimacy. It is flawed, but the message it conveys is undeniable and timeless. Hampered by its conventional storytelling skills, Close never fully lives up to its potential considering its hard-hitting subject matter, but it does have glorious moments that lure the audience in. The gorgeous cinematography ensures a visual treat, and the two child actors were… more