Blu-Raven

I had been wanting to see Magazine Dreams for a very long time, ever since hearing it described by my favorite movie podcasters who caught it on the festival circuit a couple years ago. I had no idea it had been picked up for theatrical distribution, so its seemingly sudden appearance completely took me by surprise.

Jonathan Majors's performance as Killian Maddox, an aspiring yet struggling bodybuilder, is truly next level here. Killian is a fractured man, at moments childlike and charming, at others he's like a pot of water boiling over. This can make him unpredictable scene to scene. Easily the most effective scene was his dinner date with the girl from the supermarket. Talk about a cringe moment!

My feelings are most mixed about the script, with my main complaint being it that it doesn't seem to know when to quit. There are multiple moments where I was certain the story was close to conclusion, that it was building to a moment, yet only to further continue in layering misery on thick. I found this exhausting. When the movie finally does conclude I don't know if I find the resolution entirely believable for Killian's character.

I like the movie enough to recommend, but keep in mind this can be a dark, dark film.

Elliot Page plays the character of Sam, a person who has undergone a personal journey to discover his true gender identity. Page is in fine form here, perhaps the best I've seen him in his career, in a role that feels lived in and drawn from real experience.

There are two separate stories running concurrently throughout Close To You. One concerns a family gathering Sam has some hesitation to attend, the other concerns a chance meeting he encounters on his travels with an old flame. The former situation delivers much of the film's finest moments including Sam's attempts to re-connect with members of his immediate family, with the most memorable interactions are between him and his parents. Of course, no family gathering would be complete without at least one antagonizing in-law, and ultimately Sam must confront this individual's passive-aggressive and overt transphobia head on.

I hesitate to call the re-connection with his old flame a sub-plot, it actually takes up at least as much screen time as the family drama. There's just less to grab onto here to make it nearly as compelling. Their relationship could have benefited from more backstory to give the audience a better understanding of their history together (was their younger romance secretive, for example?). As it is this portion is quite bland, nothing to lift it from anything more than a conventional romance.

While it has flashes of genuine and heartfelt emotion Close To You ends up not as impactful as it perhaps hoped to be. The script feels meandering in many spots and I'm not surprised to discover the dialogue was mostly improvised. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sam's is an important story to tell, but I can only marginally recommend this film at best.