Riley

Riley is a striking and emotionally honest film that captures the quiet intensity of adolescent self-discovery against the backdrop of small-town high school football. Centered on Dakota, a young queer athlete navigating the inner turmoil of identity, expectation, and masculinity, the film is a raw, thoughtfully crafted coming-of-age story that resonates far beyond its central theme.

Director Benjamin Howard delivers a restrained but powerful vision, with cinematography that mirrors Dakota's emotional landscape. A subdued color palette and well-executed video cuts evoke the weight of unspoken conflict, keeping the viewer closely tethered to the characters' emotional worlds. This visual language never distracts-it enhances, lending an authenticity that feels both personal and universal.

What sets Riley apart is its refusal to simplify the complexity of queer identity within hypermasculine spaces. Dakota's journey is at once deeply personal and quietly political. The film not only chronicles his internal struggle but also explores how his teammates, peers, and coaches wrestle with their own ingrained assumptions about masculinity, sexuality, and vulnerability. This shared discomfort-awkward, tender, sometimes brutal-gives the film its emotional charge.

Performances across the board are understated and affecting, with Dakota's portrayal offering a compelling mix of restraint and emotional depth. The ensemble cast, particularly the young men around him, bring nuance to roles that might otherwise fall into stereotype. Instead, Riley presents a spectrum of responses to difference-ranging from quiet acceptance to confusion, shame, and eventual growth.

While queer audiences will find much to identify with in Dakota's story, Riley speaks to a broader truth about adolescence, identity, and the longing to be seen. It's a film that will resonate not only with queer viewers but with anyone who has carried the weight of expectation during the formative, often isolating, years of youth-especially those shaped by the pressures of competitive sports.

Verdict: Riley is a beautifully rendered, emotionally resonant portrait of identity and resilience. With sensitivity and strength, it sheds light on the silent struggles behind the facades of toughness and conformity. A must-watch for anyone who's ever felt caught between who they are and who the world expects them to be.

AN EXPLOSIVE AND EMOTIONAL TEENAGE JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.

If you've seen other reviews I've done here, you'll know I like these kinds of films: complex, raw, tough, stark, and sometimes bitter. This is one of them, in its own way.

We have the typical plot of a teenager struggling between fake and real love, between what he hypocritically likes and what truly fascinates him. This has been explored several times in independent and Hollywood cinema, but here there's an interesting twist: the fact that this film is based on the real-life experiences of its director, Benjamin Howard. This gives it a special characteristic, an auteur touch, because almost always when a filmmaker bases a work on their own life, they will do so from their own perspective, simply personal.

Jake Holley steals the show with his pristine performance. Why? Because taking on this role is no easy task. Regardless of his orientation, it's complicated to play a boy with insecurities and an environment that doesn't help his self-image. Doing this is a Herculean task, especially the way he did it. It's simply sublime! The other actors play their roles perfectly. I didn't see the typical exaggerations of this kind of plot or an explosion of stereotypes to the point of exhaustion. And that's a good thing, because nowadays this is abundant in Hollywood, and independent cinema has unfortunately tried this approach, poorly and with disastrous results.

In Benjamin Howard's directorial debut, he wanted to do things in an unconventional way. I think few filmmakers in the world would make their debut a story based on their own experiences. This is usually done when you already have some experience, making this film a turning point. Although not everything is perfect.

The film's weaknesses lie precisely in its timeline; it doesn't delve into the protagonist's underlying problems or the reasons behind his behavior. It merely shows his reactions and the occasional display of sentimentality, resulting in moving but ultimately superficial scenes. I'm unsure if this was intentional or a mistake in the script.

The film could have gone deeper, as I felt somewhat lost in several sequences. In fact, I even considered omitting unnecessary scenes, but the director's insistence on including them all seems evident. It's as if he wants to establish this film as his future cinematic signature.

This film is one of the few I would recommend to any audience, especially those unfamiliar with the director's intentions and ambitions. Because it shows a human and subtly sensitive side of the internal struggle many young people face on their path to authentic self-worth. In fact, the ending summarizes this, and ultimately, one decides their own destiny, for better or for worse. This film portrayed it quite well, despite the typical cinematic errors of novice directors.

In short, a good film for visualizing modern realities. While the film is possibly set in the 90s (the post-credits scene seems to suggest this) and the cinematography is modern and wonderful, it remains a contemporary film, as everything addressed here is relevant today. It's perfect for making you reflect on those long nights when sleep doesn't come early. Recommended.

The title of my review is taken from the song "Que Sabe Nadie" by Gabino Pampini/Raphael.

Not the greatest LGBT film ever made, but it's certainly not the worst I've seen either. But it was fair.

Riley has a really good premise, and though it tells a coming-of-age story where the characters discover and question their sexuality, which we see all the time, we finally a story that we don't really see too often, and that's from the world of athletics. Very rarely have I seen a movie or TV show feature a character, a high school character, who is athletic and a football athlete. Athletics is a touchy subject, especially football, as its always protrayed as this macho man environment where only straight people play. We know for a fact that gay athletes exist, and it's refreshing to see a story from that perspective that highlights some of their struggles, too.

As a whole, the actors did a pretty good job of portraying their characters and emphasizing their feelings. It was a bit cringy at times, with some of the acting not feeling entirely real, but this isn't a blockbuster film production so I didn't go into this movie with that expectation.

My biggest complaint is the age gap of the 'high school' actors. Having 25-27-year-old actors play 17-18-year-old kids isn't too realistic, and it was too obvious watching the movie that the actors did not fit the age of their characters. Instead of a high school-based film, they would have been better suited to play college kids, and it would have been much more believable. But I get that it would alter the story too much, mainly because of how Riley revolves around the character's athletic future and college aspirations.

The coming of age and coming out drama must be difficult to inject with freshness; and to give the creators of this one, they tried. Not many of these kinds of movies concentrate on the main character's internal struggle, as opposed to the reactions of the people around them. The problem is that Riley, the main character, isn't fleshed out enough to engage the viewer. His struggle is primarily expressed by Riley having a pained expression on his face when in emotionally fraught circumstances. This makes the film slow going, since not much develops from these situations before it's time for the next scene where nothing much develops. After this endless repetition, it's finally time for him to have his epiphany in a series of scenes that feel rushed and contrived.

All in all, a well executed movie based on lackluster material.

Benjamin Howard wrote and directed the story of Riley, a high school football player struggling with his sexual identity at a San Diego high school. The kid is really good (he has six college offers, including UCLA). As an athlete and as the son of a couple that prays (and likely goes to church) he's been raised in a traditional home. He knows he's gay but horrified that he will be a disappointment to his family, especially his father (who is not only a former athlete, but his coach).

Riley won eight awards at the San Diego Film Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Score and Best Editing.

The film was inspired by Ben Howard's personal story, and when you get to the end of the film, stay for the credits where you'll see terrific footage of player 88, who is likely Howard himself. The guy was clearly an agile, skilled player who loves the game. Seriously, the real-life footage at the end of the movie is a real treat (and man, can this guy play football).

Of note are the wonderfully nuanced performances of the primary characters (played by Jake Holley and Colin McCalla). Veteran actor J. B. Waterman is also very good. The script is well-written, very tight and full of great subtext. I loved Howard's integration of the original score.

There is nothing amateurish about the film's direction and photography. It ebbs and flows perfectly thanks to very skilled editing. Many of the scenes are at dawn or dusk with beautiful sunrises, sunsets and great long shots. A series of closeups serve the film's more dramatic moments. Everything about the film feels real, thanks to great production design and Jerik Centeno's original score.

Several scenes in the film are located in the actual places that took place in Howard's life.

The story is told from Riley's point-of-view and experience and the camera follows him around as if it's invisible, as if it's telling us exactly what and how Riley is feeling, what he's thinking.

There's a great scene at a party where all we hear is the terrific soundtrack. But despite the lack of dialogue we know exactly what is going on and what happens. It's one of the film's best scenes.

I particularly liked the structure. It starts with Riley hooking up with an older guy. Things don't go well however, and flashes of this initial hookup are shown throughout the story.

What is notable is the age-old, and very sad phenomena of gay people being unkind to each other. Here's Riley, clearly struggling with his sexuality, and the guy he hooks up with is impatient, pissed off, and annoyed when Riley is obviously having a hard time coming to terms with what's going on. The same happens with another gay student. Ironically, the people that are kind to him are his straight friends.

Riley is one of the best coming-of-age, coming-out stories I have seen.