Director: John Butler
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: July 31st 2017 (UK)
Handsome Devil became a bit of a fave at film festivals, winning multiple awards at the likes of FilmOut San Diego and the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. You can see why, as it’s a sweet film, which does a good job of capturing the confusion, anger, cruelty and contradictions that are so often part of teenage life. Some of it will also be worryingly familiar to those who went to a rugby-mad boarding school.
Ned (Fionn O’Shea) feels like a total misfit. He’s constantly bullied at his Irish boarding school and called all manner of homophobic slurs. At first, he’s pleased that this year he’ll be getting a room to himself, but that’s disrupted when new boy Conor (Nicholas Galitzine) is assigned to share with him. Neither boy seems happy with the arrangement, with Ned certain that sharing a room with the boy who’s being held up as the school’s new rugby star will just mean he’ll get picked on even more. [Read more…]