"Of An Age" is a quietly heartbreaking gem

Of An Age (2023)

Between his feature directorial debut “You Won’t Be Alone” and his follow-up, writer-director Goran Stolevski has it in him to make any kind of film. If his first feature was a challenging, unsettling, and magical horror film, “Of An Age” is a gay coming-of-age love story. What both films have in common is Stolevski’s unhurried filmmaking sensibility and talent for telling clear-eyed stories with a palpable human intimacy. Romantic yet bittersweet, “Of An Age” could make for a devastating triple bill alongside Andrew Haigh’s “Weekend” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name.” It’s another story about first love, but you won’t forget it. 

Told in two time periods, the story begins with Kol (Elias Anton), a 17-year-old Serbian transplant in Melbourne, Australia. It’s the summer of 1999, and Kol is frantically trying to make a ballroom dancing competition. His dance partner and one friend, Ebony (Hattie Hook), is a mess, hungover on a beach somewhere and in need of a ride. Kol gets in touch with Ebony’s 24-year-old brother, Adam (Thom Green), to pick him up and find Ebony. Along the way in the car, Adam teases Kol and they get to know each other. While Kol never makes it to the competition with Ebony, he does confront his own sexual identity once realizing Adam has an ex-boyfriend who’s Macedonian (and named Goran, like director Stolevski himself). What transpires between Kol and Adam during just one day is real but ephemeral, as Adam is headed to Buenos Aires to pursue his Ph.D. Eleven years later in 2010, Kol and Adam meet again. Can they just pick up where they left off, or do their encounters always have a brief window?

A cinematic tête-à-tête between two men at different stages in their lives, “Of An Age” is beautifully intimate and quietly heartbreaking without an ounce of affectation. Through a car-ride conversation that extends from reading Kafka to Adam’s favorite movie (Wong Kar-Wai’s 1997 gay romance “Happy Together”), Elias Anton and Thom Green form such a deep connection on-screen as the inexperienced Kol and the more worldly Adam. There’s a spark between them. They do act upon their feelings, of course. But Kol and Adam’s time together is fleeting, and their love can’t really last. There’s nothing but authenticity from Anton and Green, as if they’re not even acting. Special mention should also go out to the make-up department, particularly for Anton who seems to have experienced a "Boyhood"-level glow-up in the film's eleven-year time jump.

It’s not every time a film is so engaging and emotionally vivid that the viewer gains tunnel vision. “Of An Age” achieves that special quality, where we are completely invested in Kol and Adam and whether or not their lives will intersect again. Collaborating again with his “You Won’t Be Alone” cinematographer Matthew Chuang, Stolevski’s camera seems to perform an almost magical depth of field, pushing closely in on his two central characters and blocking out everything else. Also, hats off to Stolevski for making sure Bic Runga’s lovely song “Sway” makes its way into the film twice. This is delicate, assured filmmaking, reverberating with the overwhelming intensity of first love’s heartache and regrets but also the maturity that stems from it.

Grade: A -

Focus Features released “Of An Age” (99 min.) in select theaters on February 10, 2023, followed by a wider release on February 17, 2023.