Elias Anton (Kol) and Thom Green (Adam) in director Goran Stolevski’s Of an Age.Thuy Vy/Focus Features
Of an Age
Written and directed by Goran Stolevski
Starring Elias Anton, Hattie Hook and Thom Green
Classification 14A; 99 minutes
In theatres Feb. 17
When portraying queer relationships on screen, time defines everything. This is a truism since everything revolves around time anyway, but for romances not conforming to societal standards time has a more defined presence. Recent films, such as Robin Campillo’s BPM, portray an era where gay men fought against the times to survive during the AIDS epidemic. Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name showed a summer tryst only made possible because it could exist outside of time. And in Andrew Haigh’s Weekend, both leads find their intense connection cut short when one of them has to leave before the weekend is over.
Goran Stolevski’s Of an Age, an underwhelming new addition to the sub-genre of tragic, fleeting gay romances, puts time first, as it’s structured across two days set 11 years apart. The first day, in 1999 Melbourne, begins with a story that likely wouldn’t happen today. Eighteen-year-old Kol (Elias Anton), a closeted high-school senior, gets a frantic call from his best friend, Ebony (Hattie Hook), who’s woken up hungover on a beach she can’t recognize. With no GPS or smartphones, they use maps and landmarks to deduce her location, then Kol meets Ebony’s brother Adam (Thom Green) who’s able to go pick her up.
Unlike Kol, Adam is openly gay, and as the two get to know each other during their impromptu road trip, they start to fall for each other. But with Adam flying to Argentina the next day to pursue a PhD, the sparks between them can only be sparks. That’s the drama at the heart of the film, where two men are right for each other at the wrong time. And while Stolevski shows a strong awareness of the heightened emotions that come with a first love, he fails to evoke those feelings in any meaningful way.
Ben King/Focus Features
While the director shows a strong awareness of the heightened emotions that come with a first love, he fails to evoke those feelings in any meaningful way in Of an Age.Thuy Vy/Focus Features
Shot largely in close-ups and shallow focus, Of an Age’s attempts to convey the intensity of Kol’s desire come across as isolating and distracting, especially with Stolevski’s tendency to rapidly cut during conversations meant to build chemistry. It also leaves little room for interiority, with Kol’s youthful naiveté laying his emotions out on the screen, while anyone outside of him and Adam appear as obnoxious, homophobic caricatures designed to represent the greater forces oppressing Kol’s true self. Call the film sensitive or tender all you want, but one thing it doesn’t have is nuance.
The broad approach and uninspired execution carry over to the second day, which is more of an extended epilogue. Set in 2010, when Kol and Adam meet again at Ebony’s wedding, the reunion doubles as a harsh reality check for Kol’s romanticism as he discovers just how much can change over a decade. Stolevski puts an emphasis on this with references to social media and Kol’s confidence with his sexuality, but it amounts to a doubling down of the same emotional beats from earlier. The specificity of Of an Age’s subject matter, combined with its stale handling of said material, only lets the film serve as a reminder of better works that came before it.
Special to The Globe and Mail
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