‘Close to You’ Review: Elliot Page Makes an Affecting Big-Screen Return in a Fragile Homecoming Drama

In his first male film role, Elliot Page brings palpable personal investment and empathy to Dominic Savage's homecoming drama 'Close to You.' "Close to You” marks a reintroduction for Elliot Page, a screen presence at once warmly familiar and sharply redefined, finally established on his own terms. In his first film role since coming out as a trans man, the actor has evidently brought much of his own identity and experience to this sensitively observed story of a trans man cagily reunited with his family after a five-year period of estrangement. (In addition to producing the project, he shares a story-writing credit with director Dominic Savage.) But Page’s performance isn’t moving merely for whatever parallels it might hold to his life: Rather, it’s a reminder of what a deft and perceptive actor he can be, capable of both naked emotional candor and acidic wit — both assets to a script that sometimes errs on the side of caution.

British director Savage is known for his improvisatory collaborations with actors, which recently drew career-best work from Gemma Arterton in the 2017 feature “The Escape,” and extended to the TV project “I Am…,” a series of intimate standalone character portraits by the likes of Samantha Morton, Letitia Wright and a BAFTA-winning Kate Winslet. Crossing over to Canada to work with Page on his home turf, the director’s technique once again gives his star ample leeway to explore himself on screen, in the process capturing something that feels truthful, however fictionally constructed. That sense of raw integrity has stood the film in good stead on the festival circuit, attracting particular interest from LGBT-oriented programmers and distributors, since its buzzy Toronto premiere last fall, shortly after the publication of Page’s memoir “Pageboy.”

Dramatically, however, improv yields mixed rewards in “Close to You,” which bounces between scenes that are finely detailed in their examination of open prejudice and subtler microaggressions in the family sphere, and others that are more vaguely essayed, building relationships on backstories that don’t yet feel fully formed. From-the-gut acting, not just by Page but a fine ensemble of Canuck character players, carries the film across the line, though even at a modest 98 minutes, it could feel tighter...