He Loves Me (2018)

With virtually no on-screen dialogue, Konstantinos Menelaou has constructed quite an image-driven look at the relationship between two gay men - Hermes Pittakos and Sanuye Shoteka - their characters have no names - as they spend a summer by the sea evaluating the state (or not) of their long term relationship. With the help of narrator Thanos Lekkas (who increasingly sounded a little like Tom Hardy to me) we are given what at times I feared was bordering on a suicide-letter assessment of the relationship - from just one perspective - as the two men play, cavort, have sex before gradually drifting apart before... Is the relationship doomed or is this rather wordy introspection a route to self-awareness and the salvation of the relationship? Thing is with this, it's just far too long and meandering. At times the script is poignant - we have all felt the intensity of love, sex, disappointment and hope - but this story doesn't really focus on manifesting these emotions on screen sufficiently. Far too many scenes of beaches and seascapes and sunsets... That they speak only once does actually work, but I could have done with maybe half an hour less of the navel gazing and a little more passion, emotion and conviction from the writing. To be fair to the two men, though - they are almost like dancers, especially in the water - and they emanate a sense that they could truly be a couple in or out of love. The score is a bit soporific which doesn't exactly help, but it's worth a watch just to see a gay film that does try to think things through...