Somewhere between the whimsical horror of Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and the gritty verisimilitude of Harmony Korine’s Kids would likely be where Joseph Amenta’s feature directorial debut Soft would land. It’s a gleeful romp at a tween’s eye level that inevitably runs smack into dream-shattering reality, this time through a queer lens.
Young queer boy Julian (Matteus Lunot) lives on the edge of life and the edge of puberty alongside his thick-as-thieves companions Otis (Harlow Joy) a gay boy, and Tony (Zion Matheson), a trans girl. They spend their summer break riding the subway, breaking into public pools, and fruitlessly attempting to access Toronto’s nightlife (“You’re six-years-old, go home” a bouncer admonishes our prepubescent protagonist).
In between these EDM-scored flights of fancy, Julian crashes with Dawn (Miyoko Anderson), a trans woman who acts as a surrogate mother to the young runaway and moonlights as a sex worker. Julian’s imperfectly idyllic summer begins to unravel when Dawn suddenly goes missing. Not wanting to involve the authorities, Julian and his crew attempt to solve the mystery themselves, but may be in for a more complex puzzle than they bargained for, which includes a reckoning with Julian’s strict conservative Filipina mother (Joy Castro).
One of cinema’s greatest strengths is the ability to get audiences the world over to empathize with lived experiences different from their own by pulling the curtain back on an existence they’re not typically privy to. This film succeeds in this mission, but leaves a tad too much to be desired.
Amenta’s film presents as one of those works aimed at a narrow niche audience. It zeroes in so tight on its characters that the film fails to give the audience enough background to understand them and their world. In fact, I found myself having to comb through the film’s press kit just to clarify certain character and setting details. One shouldn’t have to consult a manual to understand a film’s context. The film further has a rather confined feeling due to largely being shot in close-ups. This may have been partially for budgetary reasons, but still feels needlessly confining nonetheless.
This being said, the film shines in the hands of its young cast, especially lead Lunot who capably steers his character through various stages of a slowly fading facade of self-confidence. Miyoko Anderson also impresses as the reluctant mother figure Dawn, making the most of her limited screen time. The film is also a sonic delight weaving EDM tracks in tune with the characters’ roller coaster highs and lows.
Soft aims to be the type of film that is more experienced than simply viewed. It pries open the door to the experiences of marginalized youth but can’t get out of its own way enough to do much beyond preach to its own choir. As such, I can only just barely recommend joining this congregation.
6.5/10
Soft will be released theatrically in Canada on April 7