A friendship torn apart by sniggering and suspicion

Remi (left) and Leo (right) from the film Close

Close explores the intimate relationship between inseparable schoolboys Remi and Leo. From the start it’s clear they have a bond—they often have sleepovers in the same bed and are rarely apart. The film, based in Belgium, ­follows Leo, who comes across as funny, imaginative and confident.

The boys have deep-rooted love for each other. But once they start school, things that seemed safe in their own little world raise eyebrows among their new peers. The pair rest their heads on each other to the bemusement of a small group. You can’t help but wonder—if this were two young girls, would it be treated differently?

“Are you together?” a group of girls asks the two. Remi stays silent. Leo defiantly announces “No” and says they’re close “to the point we’re almost brothers”. He adds, “I could tell you the same because you do girly things together.” Are they in denial? Why is Leo just offended by the questioning? Either way, it suddenly matters that they are close.

Leo is upset by the accusations and later when Remi tries to rest on him, Leo—who until now often sought physical contact—pushes him off. Despite being picked on, Leo starts to play with the other children ­without Remi. But back at home all seems funny, light and silly again.

As Leo is teased more with ­homophobic slurs, he takes up ice hockey—without Remi—and shifts away from him. After Remi attempts to get closer by climbing into Leo’s bed, the two break out into a fight. The boys stop going to each ­other’s houses, while Leo solidifies his new friendships, and their routine is torn apart. And after Leo cycles to school without Remi for the first time a distraught Remi attacks him on the playground. The boys clearly miss each other, but they can’t speak their feelings.

Then we learn “something has happened” to Remi after he is missing from a school trip. We spend the next 50 minutes trying to work out what happened by piecing together subtle clues. Leo’s behaviour flicks between frustrated, frantic and sad. It’s only at the very end of the film Leo admits to Remi’s mum, “It’s because of me. I pushed him away.”

Of course, it’s not his fault. Leo and his older brother also often share a bed and show a lot of physical affection—as he did with Remi. Maybe Leo and Remi really were just like brothers. Maybe one, both or neither had feelings for the other.

It’s a shame that over half the film is taken up with the mystery of what happened to Remi, and their fallout wasn’t explored more fully. Or that they never had a chance to rekindle—it seems quite sudden that Remi is no longer in the picture. But the film beautifully portrays a relationship between two young boys. It asks why this has to change, and where the perceptions that change it come from.

• Close is available to stream at mubi.com now

A haunting, mesmerising and undefinable album

Listening to Lisa O’Neill’s fifth album, All of This Is Chance, is an astonishing experience. It’s impossible to pigeonhole the sound that she and the musicians around her create. This is an album and a voice that is very, very different. It’s raw, but polished, modern, but old, magical, but real—straight from the opening track set to the words of Patrick Kavanagh’s poem The Great Hunger.

Old Note, is a song that haunts, explains, confuses and enthrals. And in the closing Goodnight World, O’Neill tells us to “settle our heads and send our bones to sleep.” At a time when our planet faces almost unimaginable threats, All of This Is Chance is a meditation on our relationship with the natural world.

It recognises that what we have isn’t something that can’t be lost. O’Neill, seemed genuinely moved at her sell-out concert at the Barbican in London a few weeks ago that so many people would make the effort to come and listen to her.

In a venue of that size, it would have been understandable if the intimacy of her music had been lost. Yet nothing was. If you haven’t already listened to O’Neill’s music, do. If you get a chance to see her live, go. You’ll be mesmerised.

Simon O’Hara

• All of this is chance, by Lisa O’Neill. Out now on Rough Trade