Nathan, a 16 year old, lives with his single father Stephan, who is a cop. They have moved to a new neighbourhood and Nathan is adjusting in his new school. Within a few days, a picture of him kissing another boy surfaces on facebook and soon he is an object of everyone’s bullying. The situation is bad that even his father completely stops talking to him. Nathan tries his best to protect the identity of the other boy, who happens to be Louis, another guy in his class. The bullying takes harsh turn and one day he gets beaten really bad, primarily by Louis This shakes up his father completely and he starts to try and understand his son and come a bit closer. Meanwhile Louis continues to hang out with his girlfriend, feeling the pressure of his educated parents who are big time homophobic and wanna make sure that Louis is not friends with Nathan. The truth eventually comes out and suddenly Louis finds himself completely isolated in his own house. Depressed, he runs away from home and decides to take away his own life but i saved in time by Nathan and Stephan. Even this incident doesn’t change much in Louis parents but slowly his mother starts coming around and supports her son. In fact she even leaves her home till the father comes around. Unfortunately, his father does come to see Louis play his boxing match but leaves because he cannot still accept his son.
As I mentioned before, films like this are important and relevant even in today’s time, especially for teenagers who are struggling in coming to terms with their own sexuality. There were several scenes that I connected with while others, I felt, were a bit over the top. When Nathan’s father stops talking to him, you feel the sadness in him because his only true supporter is taking a step back. You feel how brave he has to be every single day to go to school and be bullied and face the brat students. Eventually his father comes around, which is quite believable. Similarly, the way Louis is treated by his parents, you feel so bad. I mean, just imagine yourself as a young teenager and if your parents make you eat alone, not talk to you, beat you and lock you in your room; how would you feel? I felt really really sad in those scenes. But having said that, I also found it a bit odd that in the year 2016, an educated doctor father and a corporate mother thin that this is a choice and disease and that he needs to fix himself was a bit over the top. I mean I have never seen so much homophobia, when the parents ask him to stay away from Nathan, even in class, just because rumour is that he is gay. I also did like the support that 2 of the teachers provide to Nathan when is dealing with all the bullying. Acting wise everyone does a great job and in films like this, the most important thing is to connect with protagonists and I sure did with both of them. You have Nathan who fully accepts who he is and then you have Louis, who is struggling to be himself because he is pressured by his parents expectations.
This is no great film but surely an important film that deserves to be seen by people. Hopefully parents will start becoming more understanding of their teenage kids struggling to fit in. (7/10)
Comments
Please edit your review. It's embarrassing.
About Baisers Cachés, I initially thought that the level of bullying was "outdated" but sadly perhaps not. I think there are lots of people nowadays that declare themselves tolerant but are not when confronted directly with such situation. In a place like high school, no doubt that a gay couple or just gay rumours would be hot gossip among students and subject to bullying that straight couples would not face.
I liked how the conflict of the two main characters was handled. Nathan accepted himself and his problems were mainly external (with his father and other students) while Louis's was more internal, making peace with himself about being gay though he still had to face his parents.
It was refreshing that Louis ex-girlfriend wasn't a total b**** even if she was the one that caused the problems for the gay teenagers in the first place.
Finally, I'm also glad that the film didn't end in tragedy. The boys got together and deeply in love and I think that rarely seen happy ending was the most important message of hope for real -life LGBT teens. Will definitely watch again, probably when the DVD comes out.