I was in the first months of year 7 at a new school where I knew no one. I’d just started forming a friendship with another boy. Those “will-I-be-OK?” anxieties were subsiding,my confidence growing,when suddenly my new friend pushed me away for reasons I did not understand.
The journey into adolescence for boys is perhaps harder than it ever was. Gustav De Waele (left) and Eden Dambrine in a scene from Close.A24 via AP
Initially I failed to get the message,so he arranged to meet me in a dark stairwell towards the end of lunchtime. I came hoping for a reprieve,but when I arrived he was waiting on a higher stair and wordlessly started pelting me with fruit.
One of the core values among boys at my school was “toughness”. I was bookish but not nerdy. I was good enough at sport. I was heterosexual. At my early ’80s,all-boys school,these things meant I was not at the bottom of the social pecking order. But I was never tough,nor its close cousin,cool,and I can only imagine that’s the reason my new mate saw my company as poisonous.
The experience devastated me. I withdrew,spending most lunch hours reading in the library. But not once did I talk about what I was going through,stoicism being another supposed male virtue. Only later,and tentatively,did I emerge into some friendships where I felt comfortable being myself.
As 12 and 13-year-olds we were all reflecting the broader social milieu of the era,in which men were required to be impervious to emotions other than anger and triumph. What the movieClose showed me was that,though much has changed,much still has not.
The movie Close shows how ill-equipped with language boys are to say what they’re going through.A24 via AP
It’s vanishingly rare to see such a sensitive depiction of young male friendship – we’re more accustomed to the rugged conventions of the buddy movie. But the boys here are shown unselfconsciously entwined in each other’s emotional worlds.
Then at school the toughening process begins. First are some sly queries from the girls about whether the boys are a couple. Wordlessly,for the first time,they question themselves. The male students are rougher and hasten the disorienting process. It’s never stated,but the question is still,it seems,among the most dangerous for boys of that age:“Are you gay?”
The two friends respond differently:one tries to fit in,taking refuge in a violent sport and the larger,male group. The other tries to rekindle the old spark,and when that fails,he begins hanging out with the girls. Cycling home from school together,which once was about joy,becomes about competition. We,the audience,see them roiling in unexpressed emotions they do not have the words to articulate.
The movie is about how the process of socialising these boys,labelling and categorising them,crushes their real,complex emotional lives. And how ill-equipped with language they and their peers are to say what they’re going through.
There are many more socially acceptable labels,or identities,for boys these days than the one or two I was confronted with four decades ago. There are many tribes to join,from various shades of gender identity and adherence to the noxious doctrines of But those labels are worn at least as belligerently,their boundaries patrolled by their defenders. And someone is available at all hours on social media to throw fruit at you. The modern process of finding your place seems at least as brutal as I experienced it.
I am the father of a young man who has navigated,sometimes uncertainly,around various dark rabbit holes. He’s tried out various stances but has avoided being inculcated with any of the more extreme points of view our culture aims at young men. Our family talked,argued and contested,but always kept the conversation going. InClose,the boys simply don’t have the language. They are surrounded by benign family members,but the silence grows increasingly oppressive until the words explode in anguish in the film’s final frames.
The consequences of getting this wrong are devastating:rates of depression,anxiety and self-harm are too high and growing.. Then there is the dividend of misogyny,sexual abuse and violence that comes with getting boys’ socialisation wrong.
We need to start with words. Talk to boys,listen to them. And if their words are awkward,inarticulate,or even ugly,we,the adults in their lives,cannot punish them or shut them down. We must hear them and guide them or cajole them towards understanding,always telling them they are loved. Modern adolescence is more confusing than ever and failing to help them navigate it is doing damage to us all.
If you or anyone you know needs support call 131 114,or 1300 224 636.
The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge,champion and inform your own..