Actualités

At first glance, Young Hearts seems to resemble Lukas Dhont’s Close — in its rural Belgian town setting and its focus on two early teenage boys navigating the tricky boundaries between friendship and romance. But closer acquaintance reveals Flemish filmmaker Anthony Schatteman’s first feature to be something more in line with Heartstopper or Love, Simon, entirely without the tragic dimensions of Dhont’s Oscar-nominated drama. Impressive newcomer Lou Goossens plays a 14-year-old boy thrown into emotional confusion by his attraction to a new neighbor in a film whose queer positivity should be a balm to LGBTQ kids wrestling with their sexuality as well as to parents struggling with acceptance.

That doesn’t mean the usual conflicts of brooding isolation, initial rejection and fear of stigmatization are absent. But one of the chief selling points of Young Hearts is its sincere depiction of coming out in a supportive environment, unfolding...