GLR May-June 2024

Tim’s timidity but essential honor like a glove. Fellow Trav elers is an often harrowing account of political demagoguery destroying LGBT lives. B ASED ON the autobiographical novel Arrête avec tes men songes , by Phillipe Besson, LieWithMe (the French title is lit erally “Stop with your lies”; it’s not clear why they changed this) presents Stéphane Belcourt (played by Guillaume de Ton quédec) as a renowned novelist returning home for the first time in 35 years, to his French hometown, where is to be fêted by the local gentry. Memories reawaken as soon as his car pulls into town. Through flashbacks we learn that he was a blond, be spectacled seventeen-year-old in high school, and that from a distance he adored the popular and darkly handsome fellow stu dent Thomas Andrieu (Julien de Saint Jean). Aware of Stéphane’s admiration, Thomas sets up a clandestine meeting to guide the reserved boy to his first sexual experience. In creasingly intense assignations follow. The now fiftyish Stéphane distractedly navigates the week end’s planned activities until spotting an attractive young Eng lish-speaking Frenchman guiding an American group. His dark allure distracts the famous writer’s eye. Stéphane learns that the guide is Lucas Andrieu (Victor Belmondo), Thomas’ son. As Stéphane cagily questions Lucas about Thomas’ hasty move to Spain thirty-five years prior, Lucas plays a similar game of cat and-mouse, never admitting he knows more than he lets on. Mystery and misunderstanding produce heightened tensions be tween the older and younger man, moving each toward a reck oning with the troubled and hard-laboring Thomas who

disappeared from their lives. De Tonquédec gives a masterful performance and the three young actors, Gillet, De Saint Jean, and Belmondo (grandson of Jean-Paul!), offer subtle renditions of youthful longing, confusion, and loss. I NSPIREDBY the marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, Nyad concen trates on her return to distance swimming after a thirty-year hia tus following the failure, at age 28, to be the first to swim from Havana to Key West—over 100 miles—in open waters with treacherous currents, sharks, and changeable weather. Docu mentary footage fills in some crucial back story. Nyad is played to perfection by the always estimable Annette Bening in a story that concentrates on her later years as she resumed training. Bening’s Nyad gives us a take-no-prisoners portrayal of the fiercely independent woman who may still harbor hopes of les bian romance but is focused more on achieving a world swim ming first, a dream instilled in her by her demanding father. The film follows her rigorous training from age 58 to 64. The story’s emotional core is the bond Diana maintains with her longtime friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll, played with gusto by Jodie Fos ter. She proves a perfect foil for Bening. Also crucial is their companion-boat’s navigator, John Bartlett, an old salt with years of experience plying the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Embod ied with raffish ease by Rhys Ifans, Bartlett is forced to tell Diana about unfavorable conditions that demand aborting swim crossings already underway. What makes someone like Nyad tick, what drives them to work that hard to achieve something, is never entirely clear. Flashback scenes to Nyad’s youth suggest the psychological mo tivation that has made her an angry, implacable opponent of the very seas in which she swims.

Cereal Dating

Here in my room, on zoom, My mouth afroth with Frosted Flakes, You fail to slake my thirst for something sweet You’re so far away you’re so Close to me you’re so in my face and you’re So totally untouchable I would give anything to trace Your granola grin with my fingertips To let you kiss my fingertips With a hearty “Cheerio!” I would swallow my last milky spoonful Gladly forego the rest of breakfast If only you would let me reach down Touch your honey nuts, dates, oats, Savor whole grains, clusters of sunflower seeds, A muesli symphony of warm mush

Exploding on my face while I, I imagine licking the bowl clean

M ICHAEL A PPELL

TheG & LR

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