![]() ![]() Unfortunately, his onanistic glee is interrupted by a familiar, sharp pain in his stomach. Wilder’s feelings about Oscar are played far closer to the chest than Oscar’s feelings about him: When Wilder asks to borrow Oscar’s uniform shirt for his shift, Oscar lustfully responds to Wilder’s scent upon its return. Wilder’s sexuality is left undefined, and Oscar is content not to inquire, as either option might lead to a rejection. What he does subtly shade is the friendship that develops between Oscar and Wilder ( Aliocha Schneider), a handsome co-worker at a Home Depot-ish hardware store. There’s no doubt in Oscar’s mind that he’s gay, and writer/director Stephen Dunn never makes this ambiguous. It might be above my pay grade to say that pole is a coming out metaphor, but based on the film’s gory climax, that’s the way I interpreted it. Oscar’s psyche adopts the weapon used in the attack as a symbol for his own concerns about his burgeoning sexuality. ![]() This image is rooted in Oscar’s traumatic childhood discovery of the victim of a heinous, homophobic hate crime. In addition to chatting with Buffy, Oscar has constant visions of being impaled on a large iron pole, which juts from his stomach like a bloody, phallic object. Both films use imagery and camerawork as a means of evoking the protagonist’s feelings of uncertainty, but “Closet Monster” resides in a more surrealistic universe. Like the superior “ Moonlight,” “Closet Monster” tells the story of queer youth navigating the rocky waters of self-acceptance. ![]()
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