Of an Age

Directed by Goran Stolevski

★★★½

It’s hard to ignore the impact of groundbreaking queer cinema such as Call Me by Your Name and Weekend, and their influence is ever present in Goran Stolevski’s intimate portrayal of a gentle and unexpected 24-hour romance, Of an Age.

Set at the end of the millennium in urban Australia, the film follows Kol, an 18-year-old Serbian-born immigrant, who receives a phone call from his best friend, Ebony, who has woken up on the beach from a night of partying and needs a ride. Since Kol doesn’t have a car, he gets help from Ebony’s older brother and the two begin a long drive to retrieve her and begin to form a surprisingly profound attachment.

There is a real warmth and texture that is brought to the screen, making you feel as if you are with these characters, breathing in the warm summer air and tasting the salt from the seawater on your tongue. The idyllist nostalgia that Stolevski is able to capture is amplified by rich and nuanced performances, specifically from our leading men. We see the looks of longing and intrigue behind their smiles and understand the carefully placed subtext behind their words. It's not the current climate we have today, it's 1999 and things can’t be as explicit as they are today without more fear of controversy.

Although Of an Age sometimes relies a little too much on the chemistry of its leads to believe in their love-at-first-sight romance, rather than establishing enough merit for it to stand on its own, we end up with a beautiful little film about young love, when this type of love wasn’t necessarily the easiest route to take.