Holding The Man

25 August 2015 | 11:59 am | Stephanie Liew

"It's foremost a story of enduring love, with LGBTQI themes inherently woven into it due to the context of the romance."

While attending an all-boys high school in 1970s Melbourne, aspiring actor Tim Conigrave (Ryan Corr) and footy hero John Caleo (Craig Stott) fall in love. Holding The Man follows their ensuing 15-year relationship, covering hardship and discrimination, jealousy and fidelity, family tension, changing societal attitudes, and death.

Director Neil Armfield (Candy) brings searing emotion without the melodrama to this film adaption of Timothy Conigrave's 1995 memoir. Despite the high stakes, nothing ever feels overblown, the leading actors deftly understated, letting the story speak for itself. The distinctly Australian setting, in all its muted hues, reminds the viewer this all occurred in our recent history — the timing of the film's release coinciding with the government's refusal to legalise same-sex marriage, leaving us trailing behind the US.

This is not a political romance that wears its social issues on its sleeve; it's foremost a story of enduring love, with LGBTQI themes inherently woven into it due to the context of the romance. The personal, as always, is the political, and it is the intensely personal insight into Conigrave's lived experiences that makes Holding The Man's messages all the more powerful, and its conclusion all the more devastating.