The second film from Teenage Kicks director Craig Boreham is unapologetically erotic, with a lot to admire – if you can look past the rough edges
writer-director Craig Boreham turned to Grindr. He wanted actors who knew the film’s world, not just of gay hookups and casual sex but the desires that can fuel these encounters: boredom, horniness, intense isolation.
Lonesome’s plot, as you can probably tell, is well-trodden territory: a queer coming-of-age story in which a young person finds and/or loses themselves in the sex, drugs and other vices of a big city, and has to decide whether they’re deserving of love. Call it cliche, but Boreham is working with common LGBTIQ+ experiences – tropes much more frustrating to live through than to see again on screen.
But Lonesome is filled with sparks of brilliance that bounce off these familiar beats – a verité charisma that owes much to Boreham’s app-based casting, as well as the cinematographer Dean Francis’s wonderful control of light. Shot across four weeks during the 2021 Covid lockdowns, Lonesome takes advantage of Sydney’s relative quiet: Prince Alfred Park and King and Oxford streets are alluring and vibrant if not a little chilly, like the late winter sun.
Lonesome’s acting may be stilted at times but it shines in the sex scenes: the intimacy coordinator, Leah Pellinkhof, worked with Boreham and the actors to make these moments as visceral as possible, which means we feel the awkward beats on film that are usually ignored in the moment. Everyone in Lonesome is posturing to be wanted. Casey emulates Midnight Cowboys’ Joe Buck; others lean into cringe-inducing dirty talk taken from porn, or a slow saunter nude at cruising spot Congwong beach.
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