Close to You (Prime Video) focuses on Sam (Elliot Page), a 30-something single trans male. With trepidation, he ventures back home after a years-long absence to attend his father’s birthday gathering. (It’s presumed, I think, that Sam transitioned after leaving home.) On the train from Toronto to his childhood town, he unexpectedly encounters his best friend from high school, Katherine (Hillary Baack).
Watch the trailer:
Two main interpersonal themes are developed in Close to You.
Family of Origin
To anyone who’s been the different one within a caring family, Sam’s issues back home are relatable. He’s the one who leaves in order to carve out his own space in the world. Heart-to-heart conversations initiated by family members, i.e., each parent and his three siblings, are often uncomfortable despite offering their support.
Mom Miriam (Wendy Crewson), for example, “is overcome with emotion at having Sam back in the house but also afflicted by attacks of guilt and shame over having failed him” (Matt Zoller Seitz, rogerebert.com). Even now she continues to misgender him at times; this might be more upsetting for her than for Sam, who gets that it’s an adjustment.
Dad Jim (Peter Outerbridge) admits he was always deeply worried about Sam’s depression but has felt much better knowing Sam seems happy in his new life. Other scenes show Sam’s siblings fumbling around, presumably trying their best. Seitz: “Some of Page’s most eloquent and multilayered close-ups capture that grin-and-bear-it double-bind that people in Sam’s situation find themselves in, where it’s not appropriate to jump on another person for failing to react in precisely the correct way at every given millisecond because they are only human, and, in their own minds at least, they mean well. Whatever the flaws, their behavior is preferable to the alternative.”
Brother-in-law Paul (David Reale) is the one who really keeps blowing it with his weird alcohol-fueled attempts to connect. “He behaves as if the mere presence of Sam is an accusation of bigotry against him. He’s obsessed with how Sam’s identifying as a man forces the rest of ‘them’ (mainly him) to change and adapt…” (Seitz).
Eventually, the family’s inability to offer enough buffer is too much for Sam. He storms out.
Former Best Friend Is Now…What?
Katharine, whom Sam has continued to see, clearly represents unfinished business. As with many LGBTQ folks, in high school Sam lacked full comprehension and/or acceptance of his budding romantic feelings. Married to a man and mom to two kids, Katharine too is disconcerted, to say the least—in an uh-oh-it’s-those-kinds-of-feelings-I-have-for-this-guy kind of way.
Selected Reviews
Noah Berlatsky, Chicago Reader: “Dominic Savage’s Close to You is a quiet indie film that hits a lot of familiar beats, all of which are transformed by a respect for and celebration of trans identity—something that remains depressingly rare in film.”
Steve Erickson, Gay City News: “Unlike Page, Sam isn’t a public figure, but his behavior reflects the impact of his dehumanizing perception as a symbol of an identity perceived as a crisis by right-wingers, rather than an actual person. The best aspect of ‘Close to You’ is its centering of a trans man who refuses to take other people’s b.s., even when it’s stated politely. Page’s work here embodies this much better than the film built around him.”
Peter Travers, ABC News: “This mostly improvised drama about a trans man reuniting with his family can feel clumsy and contrived, but it soars on waves of raw feeling thanks to the deeply felt, deeply moving performance of Elliot Page in a role he wears like a second skin.”
