The Lost Boys review – tattoos and tenderness in young offenders love story | Drama films

Talking about feelings can be a struggle for a teenage boy at the best of times. But when those feelings are taboo – the stirring of a romantic connection between two boys in a French young offenders institution, for example – articulating those emotions becomes an insurmountable challenge.

The burgeoning attraction between Joe (Khalil Ben Gharbia), a young Arab boy from a broken home, and the glowering, impulsive William (Julien De Saint Jean) initially plays out in lingering glances drenched in fiercely inarticulate longing, before graduating to desperate, covert clinches and messages of love tapped out on the partition wall separating their cells. Belgian director Zeno Graton’s feature debut is soulful and sensitive, and the two photogenically chiselled leads serve up authentically bruised vulnerability along with their botched homemade tattoos. It’s a small film, about raw, fleeting moments, but it’s intensely felt.

Talking about feelings can be a struggle for a teenage boy at the best of times. But when those feelings are taboo – the stirring of a romantic connection between two boys in a French young offenders institution, for example – articulating those emotions becomes an insurmountable challenge.

The burgeoning attraction between Joe (Khalil Ben Gharbia), a young Arab boy from a broken home, and the glowering, impulsive William (Julien De Saint Jean) initially plays out in lingering glances drenched in fiercely inarticulate longing, before graduating to desperate, covert clinches and messages of love tapped out on the partition wall separating their cells. Belgian director Zeno Graton’s feature debut is soulful and sensitive, and the two photogenically chiselled leads serve up authentically bruised vulnerability along with their botched homemade tattoos. It’s a small film, about raw, fleeting moments, but it’s intensely felt.