![]() ![]() They sit pensively on beds in adjacent bedrooms, acutely aware of the overwhelming presence on the other side of the wall. When they finally return home, sister in tow, Adam offers Kol a change of clothes. A will-they-or-won’t-they intrigue builds as the younger Kol insists he isn’t gay or anything like that, even asking if Tori Amos is “one of those gay singers like Barbra Streisand.” In perhaps the most important lesson imparted in the whole film, Adam replies, “Tori Amos is definitely not like Barbra Streisand.” The humor adds a pleasant light air to the unspoken heaviness underneath, felt mostly by the lingering glances and weighty emotions conveyed beautifully by the two actors. Once the story lands firmly on the two of them, the rest of the film floats by in a haze of summery eroticism. ![]() Throughout the languorous car ride, the young men steal sidelong glances at each other, searching eyes flashing brightly in the rearview - the recital now firmly in the rearview as well. Though the filmmaker gives Adam’s ex-boyfriend his name, even including a little rib about Goran’s, it’s obvious that Kol is Stolevski’s stand-in, with his traditional Balkan family and outsider status as an immigrant to Australia. Stahelski peppers their dialogue with film references, including playing the soundtrack to “Happy Together” on cassette, and a cheeky reference to “Strangers on a Train” when Kol says he wishes someone would kill his uncle. It’s the kind of queer romance suspended in time that will have everyone in their feels, on par with “Weekend” and “Call Me By Your Name.” As writer/director on his second feature, the Macedonian-born, Austalian-raised filmmaker Goran Stolevski firmly plants his flag in the romance genre with an offbeat playfulness all his own. ![]() While “Of an Age” leans a little heavily toward sentimentality at times, a sharp wit and a few wild shifts in tone keep things afloat. That the entire thing is set in Melbourne, Australia, adds another layer of distance to the whole affair, coating it in a kind of dewy faraway melodrama. The film opens in 1999, though the boxy cars harken even further back, and ends in 2010, performing some impressive movie magic to make the actors look age-appropriate. But it’s also a story split across two decades, essentially bifurcated in two recent but now solidly bygone eras. The simple yet effective title “ Of an Age” plays a few tricks with its double entendre the peppy romance about a young queer man’s first brush with love captures a certain glowing youthful nostalgia. ![]()
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