Close 2023

In rural Belgium, two 13-year-old boys, Léo Eden Dambrine and Rémi Gustav De Waele, share a bond that feels deeply intimate for their age, a closeness that colors every day they spend together. They have a quiet routine of sleeping in the same bed in Rémi’s bedroom, a detail their families receive with warmth and without judgment; Sophie Émilie Dequenne and Peter Kevin Janssens love Léo like a second child, while Léo’s family helps run a flower farm where the boys freely roam, play, and drift between work and imagination among the blooms. The setting—sunlit fields, the hum of bees, the steady cadence of farm life—shapes the ordinary space where their friendship grows.

At school, a trio of female classmates openly asks if the two are a couple, and Léo answers with a firm denial while Rémi stays quiet, leaving the question hovering in the air. The moment makes Léo uneasy, a sign of how external perceptions press in and threaten the safety of their bond. Soon he faces harsh, homophobic slurs from other boys, a reminder that their closeness may not be accepted beyond the privacy of home. Fearing ostracism more than the truth of his feelings, Léo begins to seek new friendships and even takes up ice hockey, an activity that keeps him busy and away from Rémi, a deliberate distancing that unsettles both of them. The once-easy companionship thins as Léo’s world widens in ways that do not include Rémi.

One night, during a sleepover at Rémi’s, Léo decides to sleep on a separate mattress. When he wakes, he finds Rémi sharing the same bed still, and a rush of confusion and anger erupts into aggression that leaves Rémi hurt and bewildered. From that moment, Léo grows more distant, resuming solitary routines, riding his bicycle with classmates other than Rémi, continuing ice hockey, and spending more time helping his family on the farm. Rémi confronts him in vain, and the tension flares into a brief, painful fight between the two friends. The depth of their connection now sits at risk, hidden behind a wall of misunderstanding and fear.

The school trip that Rémi misses becomes a turning point: the class returns with news that Rémi has killed himself. Léo confronts the catastrophe with a gravity that he cannot fully show; he believes his withdrawal and his inability to respond to Rémi’s needs contributed to the tragedy, and the weight of that belief tugs at him in every moment. Yet he closes himself off, unable to grieve openly during the class therapy sessions offered by the school. The obituaries paint Rémi as a happy, friendly boy, a portrayal that one by one sparks a defiant response in Léo—an insistence on grappling with the truth of his pain rather than accepting the glossy version the world offers.

In the months that follow, Léo tries to mask his sorrow through routine: ice hockey, tending the garden, and the endless repetition of farm chores. Still, none of his new friendships offers the same shelter or clarity he once found with Rémi. He does find solace in confiding, gradually, in his older brother Charlie Igor van Dessel, whose presence offers a quieter form of comfort and a mirror for Léo’s fear and longing. Charlie’s support becomes a crucial anchor as the family navigates grief from a distance, while Sophie Émilie Dequenne and Peter Kevin Janssens grapple with their own sorrow and the sense of a future that Rémi’s absence has forever altered.

After Rémi’s funeral, Léo feels a pressing need to speak with Sophie, hoping to maintain a thread of connection with the family even as the world shifts around them. During a dinner that brings Sophie and Peter to Léo’s home, the moment deepens as Charlie speaks about his own future plans, and Sophie and Peter confront the stark reality of a boy who will never grow up into those possibilities. The conversation carries an ache that lingers, a reminder of the fragility of youth and the heavy burden of unspoken grief.

When summer arrives and Léo visits Sophie at her workplace, a slow, uneasy drive home becomes the catalyst for confession: he tells Sophie that he believes Rémi’s suicide was his fault for pushing him away. The revelation comes with a tremor of fear, but it is met with a gentle, healing moment as Sophie holds him and they cry together, allowing the shared pain to begin to loosen its grip. In the months that follow, Sophie and Peter move away, leaving the house empty and the fields silent in a way they were not before. In the final quiet of the field where Léo and Rémi once ran together, Léo walks through the memory of their friendship and allows himself to grieve at last, acknowledging the depth of what they shared and the accident of time that kept them apart.

This is a story of a fragile, formative bond under pressure, of the brutal ache of loss, and of the slow, painstaking process of learning to bear the weight of guilt while honoring the lasting memory of a friend who helped define who Léo becomes.