Free At Heart (German)

This German coming of age drama tackles a really tricky taboo subject and it's going to split people right down the middle. The film starts off looking exactly like every other teenage countryside romance you've seen before, lush visuals, swimming, bike rides through the country, and then it pulls a twist that completely changes what kind of movie you're watching. It does have shock value going for it, but honestly it didn't manage to hold my attention the whole way through. There are a lot of loose threads and underdeveloped ideas that just get left hanging.

In a small German town, Sebastian is living a pretty normal teenage life, sheltered and looked after closely by his parents, sneaking off here and there to drink beers by the lake with friends as his version of rebellion. He has a girlfriend too, though she clearly wants to take things further than he's ready for. He's just a kid trying to work out where he fits in the world. Everything shifts when his father suddenly brings home another boy named Kolja, supposedly the son of an ex girlfriend from before his marriage, a kid he'd been a godfather to. After the initial awkwardness of having a stranger in the house, Sebastian starts developing feelings for Kolja that he's never felt for anyone, including his own girlfriend. He's not ready to deal with the idea that he might be gay, especially having seen how openly gay and trans people get treated in this small town. As the two of them get closer they find out they're actually biological brothers. That discovery wrecks the trust Sebastian has with his parents and things spiral fast once both boys realize they've found not just a soulmate in each other but real first love. They know how wrong this looks from the outside and try to keep it hidden, but they can't really control what they're feeling. Once the truth gets out, word spreads through the town fast, Seb gets beaten up, his parents are already struggling with work, and his little sister starts getting bullied at school. Child services step in and take Kolja away to put an end to the relationship. The family barely manages to get through the rest of the school year and decides to leave town since staying somewhere everyone now knows everything just isn't realistic anymore. In a quiet, open ended finale, Seb tracks down where Kolja is now living and shows up to see him on his birthday.

The film does succeed at making you genuinely uncomfortable. Stories about incest are never going to be easy to sit through, and throwing a gay angle into that mix can either land really well or completely fall apart depending on how it's handled. The director goes into this with real curiosity and doesn't seem to be judging either character, letting Sebastian and Kolja's story play out naturally. But as someone watching, it's still deeply uncomfortable because part of you knows this is fundamentally wrong, even setting aside the fact that these are two boys figuring out attraction and identity for the first time. They're brothers, even if neither of them knew that when they first started feeling something for each other. Seb has basically been a loner his whole life with just one close friend and a girlfriend who's more of a formality. Kolja on the other hand is instantly likeable and it doesn't take long before he's the most popular kid at school. Sebastian keeps his distance at first but eventually gets pulled in too. Their bond builds gradually and along the way you realize this family is sitting on a lot more secrets than just this one. I wish the film had spent more time on the queer community living in that house in town that catches fire, the one Sebastian visits once he starts questioning his own sexuality. That whole thread barely gets touched, which feels like a missed opportunity for a teenager who doesn't know a single other gay person in his life. Beyond just being a coming of age story, this is really about two kids trying to find their place in the world while dealing with feelings neither of them fully understands. Even the parents are carrying their own baggage that slowly comes out as the story moves forward.

This is a genuinely uncomfortable watch, especially if you have a brother of your own, and it's the kind of film that's going to get very mixed reactions from different people. For me it landed somewhere around average, mostly because it was hard to look at it objectively as just another teenage gay love story. (6/10)