VOD Review - I Am Jonas

There are multiple titles for this movie. The current title is how it's listed on IMDB. However, if you go to Amazon, the title is Boys, which is a very generic title that several films already have. If you watch the movie, the title that appears on screen is simply Jonas. Written and directed by Christophe Charrier, the movie was originally a TV production or at least it was first broadcast on television back in 2018 via ARTE France. It was made available on DVD and streaming that same year. It features an amazing, new, French actor who had just started appearing in films in 2017, so there wasn't much of a hook to it. Reportedly, it's only within the last month that the film finally appeared on Netflix, which is where I finally saw it. Since the social distancing, mandated by the government, thanks to COVID-19, I'm noticing things on Netflix and other digital platforms more and more. I probably would have gotten around to this film eventually because I do like the actor in it, but now I'm getting to it a bit faster.

Félix Maritaud first appeared in the highly acclaimed, French film BPM (Beats Per Minute). That film was about gay men and women dealing with the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the 1980's. Maritaud's follow-up to that was the film Sauvage / Wild, where Maritaud played a young gay man living on the streets as a homeless hustler, having to prostitute himself or needing to prostitute himself with various men. He's done a couple of films since, including this one, in which he's played a queer character and Maritaud is himself openly gay. His films thus far have been united in exploring the queer experience, but this film feels like it could be united or linked to one of his previous features. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that it could in fact be a prequel to Sauvage / Wild.

Here, he plays Jonas Cassetti, a man who has a very eventful couple of days. Charrier's film follows him over the course of these couple of days. He's practically arrested. He becomes homeless. He becomes disconnected from his family and friends. He becomes obsessed with one particular man, which turns out to be not healthy. He's then left to wander on the streets of France. It's not a direct prequel to Sauvage / Wild, but there are enough similarities that if one was confused about how Maritaud's character came to be in Sauvage / Wild, this film offers a possible explanation that makes sense, if not literally, then spiritually in a lot of regards.

Nicolas Bauwens, in his feature debut, also stars as Jonas Cassetti. Bauwens plays Jonas as a 15-year-old, or as "Jonas ado," with "ado" being French for teenager. Maritaud plays Jonas as a 30-something. The film then flashes back-and-forth between Jonas' life as a teenager and as an adult. For young Jonas, it's all about the discovery of being gay and falling in love with his first boy. For adult Jonas, it's all about the disillusionment of being gay and the heartbreak of not being able to find what you want or losing that first love and having to deal with the aftermath of it.

The structure of it reminded me of another French film, that of Sébastien Lifshitz's Presque rien (2000). Lifshitz's film also flashed back-and-forth. It wasn't a 18-year gap as Charrier's film does. It was instead a 18-month gap. Yet, it showed the time a young man meets and falls in love with another, as well as the time after that first, young man loses that other. That young man in question then has to deal with the depression of which. Here, Charrier's film does the same. Here, it's Jonas feeling the joy of discovery and then him dealing with the pain of depression and loss. Yet, I would argue that this film has a more hopeful ending than Sauvage / Wild.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 22 mins.

Available on Netflix