Of An Age (2023)
It’s been a while since I’ve watched a good coming of age film. Everyone’s story is different, but we often share the emotions that come with events in our lives. Of An Age captures some of those feelings with a succinctness that was very moving.
Kol is almost 18 when he meets his best friends brother, Adam, during a crisis situation when he ends up spending some time with him in a car. They get to know each other pretty quickly, and soon discover they have more in common than most other boys they know in their seemingly small town.
This is where I started to relate to the film and picked up a theme. Growing up in a place where you feel like the outsider (or for me the only gay person), can be a lonely place. But when you finally meet someone who “is like you” – and even more than that, when you like them – there is a specific feeling that I remember unlike anything else. That feeling is captured here.
I enjoyed that the story was driven by the characters and their moments in time and then later, their development. The scene in the car is a long one that could have become tedious, but it drove the narrative in a key way. The story movement is often subtle but pronounced at the same time.
The pacing of the film was also interesting. It started with this crisis situation of Kol’s best friend, Ebony, being stuck across town when they needed to be at a dance show that was seemingly the culmination of their dancing work. Kol is frantic, and he and Ebony are yelling at each other over the phone. It makes you feel the angst playing out in front of you. But then the film slows down, takes a breath, and gives the viewer a chance to take in the moments when everything changes.
Researching the film and watching some of the interviews with the writer/director (Goran Stolevski), he talked about people coming up to him after the film and saying, “How did you know my life story?” I think many people, gay and straight, have had the experience of meeting the right person at the wrong time, or missing an opportunity and wondering “what if.” I think this speaks to the way the film is presented with its character focus and emotionally driven story.
The tagline of this film is “All we have is now.” This is certainly a theme of the film in that our protagonists have limited time and must live in the moment for the time they do have. But it also speaks to what we take with us from moments in our lives. Kol says, “..Life froze to this one feeling. Sometimes.. so many times, I think… Fuck. How lucky am I? What other boy in Watsonia got to experience this feeling? I’ve met boys. They don’t know this feeling… only I do. How lucky.”
Even those moments that can bring us pain can bring us joy.
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