2 Best Movies to Watch by Léa Drucker

Leo and Remi are close. They play, eat, and sleep together, and in between those moments, they share every thought they have with each other, no matter how big or small. Theirs is a precious friendship, as pure and as intimate as can be, but all that changes when they begin middle school. Subject to heteronormative norms and preteen mockery, their friendship starts to crack as Leo and Remi’s different definitions of manhood emerge.

Subtle but evocative, quiet but deeply powerful, Close takes a closer look at boyhood and male friendships—how they’re lived, defined, and seen. Plenty of questions go unanswered in this film, but if you’re comfortable with simply empathizing with the characters rather than knowing every answer, then Close comes highly recommended.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Ahlaam Teghadouini, Cachou Kirsch, Eden Dambrine, Émilie Dequenne, Gustav De Waele, Hélène Theunissen, Igor van Dessel, Kevin Janssens, Léa Drucker, Léon Bataille, Marc Weiss, Serine Ayari

Director: Lukas Dhont

Rating: PG-13

During Custody’s opening scene — a judge-mediated custody hearing between ex-spouses Miriam (Léa Drucker) and Antoine (Denis Ménochet) — the latter’s lawyer pleads with the judge to side with her client, arguing that, despite his reported history of violence and the reluctance of the couple’s 11-year-old son to live with him, “Nothing here is black and white.” Custody plays something of a poker face in its first few minutes, leaving us as reliant as the judge is on arguments like these, but outside of the mediation room, the film’s tight 93-minute runtime builds to a finish that will conclusively — and terrifyingly — prove that claim false.

The skill of Custody, however, is in the fact that we don’t need this definitive proof to form our judgment, because we can feel the silent threat of it in every preceding frame. Each of its naturalistic scenes, whether ostensibly quotidian or celebratory, is suffused with simmering dread and ticking tension; even when he’s absent, Antoine looms over the family’s life like a dark cloud. With such restrained mastery over a thriller-like tone, Custody reveals the family’s all-too-common reality as the horror it really is.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: Alain Alivon, Anne-Gaëlle Jourdain, Coralie Russier, Denis Ménochet, Florence Janas, Jean-Claude Leguay, Jean-Marie Winling, Jenny Bellay, Julien Lucas, Léa Drucker, Martine Schambacher, Martine Vandeville, Mathilde Auneveux, Saadia Bentaïeb, Thomas Gioria

Director: Xavier Legrand