This film is very much a romantic drama involving two, young men in New York City. Putting aside the issues that come into the narrative, it stands as one of the most beautiful, sexy, charming, endearing and powerful romances to be put to screen this year, as far as I've seen. However, issues do come into the narrative that make it more of an incredible accomplishment from Matthew Fifer in his feature debut as co-director, co-writer and co-actor. One of the issues, if not all of them, comes as a surprise in the narrative, somewhat. For me to talk about it would be a bit of a spoiler, but the issue needs to be discussed, as the point of the film almost demands that to be the lesson or the takeaway. This issue needs to be discussed, even as difficult as it is. This issue is connected to the time period in which this film is set, which one might assume is present-day NYC.
Yet, the film includes news reports about Jerry Sandusky, the infamous assistant football coach at Pennsylvania State University. The reason he's infamous is because in 2011, Sandusky was arrested and charged with 52 counts of child sexual abuse of boys. He was tried and convicted in the summer of 2012. This film takes place in either those years or shortly thereafter. The film references the Sandusky case, not simply to establish the time period, but, specifically to establish child sexual abuse, and sexual abuse of boys in particular, as one of the issues this film is tackling and addressing.
Many films have tackled sexual abuse and even rape of women or girls. The sexual abuse of boys is one that hasn't gotten much screen time, outside of the Catholic Church scandal, exemplified in the Oscar-winning
Spotlight (2015). That film didn't really tell the story from the perspective of the victims or the effect the abuse had on their lives as adults. Denzel Washington's
Antwone Fisher (2002) did accomplish that. Stephen Chbosky's
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) also did it to a degree, but Fifer's film is part of Outfest Los Angeles, one of the prominent LGBTQ film festivals in the United States, so Fifer's film does what Washington's and Chbosky's didn't and that's put a queer character who has suffered in that way as the protagonist.
It's not that a queer filmmaker hasn't put a queer character, dealing with such issues, into the protagonist's position. Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education (2004) and Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin (2005) did so by weaving almost fantastical tales, which included meta-narratives and alien abductions, respectively. François Ozon's By the Grace of God (2019) took this issue away from the fantastical or any kind of pulp excitement. Yet, Ozon's film was still not quite centered on the effects of the abuse on the individual boys now men. Ozon's film was about the overall push for justice or some kind of prosecution of the perpetrators. Fifer's film eschews that path and pares things down simply to how a young man would be affected as a result of such sexual trauma as a child. Fifer himself plays that young man named Ben with charm, humor and pathos.
Other issues at play include the often-used issue in LGBTQ films and that's the coming-out narrative. Sheldon D. Brown in his feature debut co-stars as Sam, a black man living in Brooklyn who becomes the principal love interest. He's gay but isn't out to his co-workers or his family, particularly his father. Yes, the coming-out narrative is hackneyed and cliché, as well as past its prime, but a skilled writer and filmmaker can make it not feel so stale and indeed fresh. It helps that Sam has other things going on, specifically he has his own trauma with which he's contending. It should be noted though that Sam's trauma isn't merely contrived for
this film. Brown incorporated his own real-life trauma into this narrative, bravely and boldly. It's not sexual abuse, but it is abuse that makes his experience comparable and thus a foil in the literary sense to Ben.
The look of the film is akin to many NYC-set films from independent filmmakers and akin to the neorealistic style. A lot of it is from a documentary filmmaker's eye, utilizing handheld shots and available light, sometimes only. If there's anything outstanding about this film cinematic-wise, it might simply be in the sound design, as the noise from the titular insect becomes an instrumental tool. While coming-out is a cliché narrative, Fifer utilizes it not only with Brown's character but with his own, and the sound design is what nails it, in what certain characters say or not say, as well as that insect noise, which is used to build to a climactic moment that was brilliantly done. It was a punch to the ending of a LGBTQ film that I haven't felt, since Joshua Lim's The Seminarian (2011).
Finally, Fifer's film opens with the depiction of a young man who could be considered bisexual, pansexual, polysexual or just being sexually fluid. The film establishes that Ben can and does have sex with a variety of people, mostly men but women and even transgender people. Some who identify as bisexual or similarly would surely appreciate that this film at no point includes what could be considered discrimination or bigotry toward bisexuality or sexual fluidity. It's simply an accepted state of being. The film never depicts enough time of Ben with that variety of people to have it be anything but an accepted state. It's just a montage showing Ben having sex with that variety with no words or any context. It's just him jumping from sexual encounter to sexual encounter. This is at once refreshing and perhaps also indicative of his traumatic effects.
However, connecting his sexuality to his trauma might seem problematic, but it could be rooted in reality. A couple of years ago, the British series Emmerdale explored the idea of a young gay man named Aaron Dingle, suffering from the lingering effects of being sexually abused as a child. Fifer's film echoes a few of the thoughts and feelings of that Emmerdale character. That series reportedly told its story based on a lot of real-life research, so to hear it echoed here by Fifer leads me to believe that Fifer's film is rooted in reality and that it is very authentic.
Not Rated but contains graphic nudity and sexual situations.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 36 mins.
For more information, go to https://www.cicadafilm.com/.
For more on Outfest, go to https://outfest.org/outfestla2020/.
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