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Review

Close to Leo tells the story of a family faced with familial tragedy, the infection of their oldest son Leo with AIDS. Even with a choppy editing and unexplained story threads, this film is still touching and very real.

There are four sons in this very close French family: Leo, the oldest is gay and just revealed not only his positive HIV status, but also that he has AIDS; Tristan and Pierrot are the middle brothers -- we don't learn all that much about them; and Marcel, the youngest who is very close with Leo. In an early scene Leo reveals his health status to his family, but they excuse Marcel and much of the story is driven by the young boy's lack of official information. Eventually Leo tells Marcel of his AIDS infection and they take a trip to Paris together to visit an ex-boyfriend of Leo's. In Paris, Leo has one of the hottest aborted sex scenes we've seen -- he walks away, we wouldn't and there is no explanation for the abrupt ending. We wish there were more background and a clearer understanding of the motivation of the leads in the film.

What we can recommend about Close to Leo is that it beautifully portrays a family in crises over a teenager with AIDS. There is so much closeness in this family, there are several scenes of the teen brothers sleeping together with little or no clothing. There is some full frontal nudity and lots of shots of these cute teens. (French with English subtitles)

 -- Scott Cranin