Rich in tension and feeling, This Closeness is a study on intimate relationships and prejudices that follows Tessa (Kit Zauhar) and Ben (Zane Pais), a young couple, staying at the home of Adam in Philadelphia (Ian Edlunda) for Ben's high school reunion.
Written, directed, and starred by Kit Zauhar, this is her sophomore feature, and, like her previous one, Actual People from 2021, it is a microbudget. It takes advantage to the utmost of its limitations by thematically focusing on a concept that easily interpellates by its universality. Being a guest at somebody else's home is something more common than ever due to technology and the use of applications like Airbnb, but nonetheless it is one of those things that somehow you never get used to in the sense of finding comfort in the presence of strangers. Trust is at the heart of this, considering we are talking about people we don't know who, for a given time, will share with us the same place. What might be considered normal for someone might not be for the other, something that makes us more aware than ever of manners and mores. By framing the story in a setting like this, Kit Zauhar manages not only to explore themes of intimacy regarding individuality and romantic relationships, but also give it contrast with someone whose life might seem to differ from the reality a couple experiences. There is an active search for differentiation in the portrayals of the couple and their host. From minor aspects like posture, light preference, edibles, and beverage, to major ones in relation to social life and perceived image, e.g., Ben is conveyed as an extrovert, confident, and good-looking, while Adam as an introvert, socially awkward, and considered non-hegemonic.
Walls as thin as these offer little escape to unintentional eavesdropping. Reasons that make tension rise as the movie progresses. Sound, for this reason, constitutes a nexus in their lives, if only unwanted. A weekend where idiosyncrasies surface from the depths and confront the other as peculiar, making many situations humorous by their relatable nature but at the same time sad by reason of how prejudice blooms when not in public. It is interesting how people cease to be in terms of personhood while being the object of the other's gaze. How we tell ourselves that what the others might think is of no importance to us, while we act in certain ways to convey the image we want, an image not born out of ourselves, but by the other's scrutinization and opinion of us.
Zauhar is interested in exploring how fragile people are in relation to how they are perceived. From acting in ways to communicate how manly they are, to opting for uncalled jealousy owing to unresolved teenage wounds about body image and self-love, the film is a constant intimate display of human behavior. The past is a vehicle for Zauhar to explore identity construction. In the movie, by reason of Ben's high school reunion, there is dialogue around school days, and it opens up an interesting idea about their nature as a possible façade for immaturity by reason of the importance someone might give to them. A line between someone who, at least part of them, still lives or is socially invested in the past and someone who sees that period as a transition and therefore something finalized is illustrated to explore deeper feelings and meanings.
The movie is performed with such precision, embedded in dialogues that strike for their naturalness, that many times it feels like a voyeuristic experience, making This Closeness worth watching.
