21-year old Leo (Pierre Mignard) is the eldest of four sons in a close knit family and Marcel (Yannis Lespert), 11, is the youngest. Leo is HIV-positive and homosexual, facts that don't interfere with his familial bonds but which are kept secret from Marcel, who the family believe is too young to know about it all. Leo initially refuses to take anti-retroviral medication, but eventually travels to Paris for treatment. After catching the tail ends of one-too-many whispered conversations and with his older brother having endless tests in hospital, Marcel starts to clue on. On the cusp of puberty, Marcel incinerates what's left of his boyhood innocence by pursuing Leo for the truth.

Tout contre Léo (Close to Leo) is an beautifully shot film with a an affectingly melancholy heart. It's intelligent and innovative in several ways and I haven't seen a film that deals with a very young, HIV-positive gay guy in quite the ways that this film does. The problem is the gently-does-it pace and elliptical structure which occasionally results in inertia and which left me, at times, wondering exactly what was going on. Also, extremely supportive families such as that enjoyed by Leo may exist, but when everyone is on the same side and no one has any fights to pick, then dramatic tension is all but impossible, and the film drifts in and out of a heartwarming and picturesque coma.

I think we enter the story a little too late: we're never given any backstory as to how long Leo's been HIV-positive, how the diagnosis went down when he announced it, presumably, at the dinner table over red wine and cigarettes one night after Marcel had gone to bed. Belaboured HIV-declaration scenes with tearful mothers and fathers and brothers full of concealed devastation are never that interesting to watch, but we just seem to arrive at a story that feels half-told, and we've been left out of the whole first half. It's an efficiency in one sense, as the film is about Marcel's coming-of-age and Leo's departure from the family (and the Earth) but what results is a Xanax family, that react to what must be an extremely disruptive and traumatic situation with a puzzlingly casual air. Their concern that Marcel might catch on seems to be greater than their concerns of Leo's health, his sexuality, the situation's seismic impact on their lives. Again, perhaps such famillies exist, or maybe it's a French thing, but the family's iron web of unquestioning support is dramatic poison. There should have been at least one character who bristled a little or refused to tow the party line.

However, merits are plentiful and the film can be enjoyed as a disjointed series of fascinating vignettes. A keen barebacker, Leo is insulted and turned off when his swarthy hospice receptionist insists on fucking him with a condom on. The receptionist scrambles to offer a drink, or change tack, but Leo is zipping up his pants and heading back to his room. The psyches and experiences of sero-discordant gay guys are canyon-separated and I don't think any of us have ever really worked out how to get that condom on, or keep it off, without a whole train of subconscious associations running through our heads.

Scenes involving the three older brothers sharing bottles of scotch and trips to the beach are beautifully done, and capture an authentic franternity of thre well-raised young men coming into adulthood. Again, though, the whole gay/HIV thing just zips in and out like a zephyr. Whether this is realistic or not is one thing, but the warmth of the brother scenes are not balanced by any tension, something extraordinary given the circumstances.

The unnamed Mother (Marie Bunel) is a steely character rendered by a strong actress, but she has little to do but stand around looking gently wounded but trying to show a face that is full-of-resolve. At one point, she falls to the ground for no apparent reason and lies there motionless for a full three minutes: I prefer more explicatory film making.

I think it's wonderful that Tout contre Léo (Close to Leo) provides an antidote to the hand-wringing, kitchen-sink HIV-dramas that come from America, such as In The Gloaming, or Philadelphia, films that never waver from a droning chit-chat about how everyone is dealing with the gay son's AIDS problem, but I'm reminded of Michael Callen's observation about AZT, the over-potent ersatz anti-HIV medication that he said was like using a nuclear warhead to kill a mosquito. Much the reverse, Tout contre Léo (Close to Leo) - while to be commended for avoiding the pitfalls of overwrought HIV movies - is too subtle for its own good.

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