Daniel Ribeiro’s film, based on his earlier short, is a bright, sunny coming-of-age drama. In a Q+A session after the screening the director said that one of the motivations behind making his movie was to empower the gay children who would see it. This is laudable, and absolutely makes for a great tool for teachers to tackle homophobia in schools, but doesn’t necessarily make for a great movie. It’s sweet, and likeable, but sits uneasily with the Eyes Wide Open’s remit of ‘exploring queer cinema’. This isn’t the damning criticism it may at first seem, but if Disney made a gay movie it would look like this.
Leonardo (Ghilherme Lobo) is blind and like any teenager feels he wants to gain independence from his parents who, because of his disability, are protective almost to the point of smothering him. When he says he wants to go on an exchange visit to the US his mother, somewhat tactlessly, asks ‘who’s going to take in a blind kid’ as if a blind teenager travelling to another country is science fiction. He has a best friend Giovana (Tess Amorim) who loves him, but their friendship is put under pressure with the arrival of new classmate Gabriel (Fabio Audi). Will Leo end up getting the girl, or the boy? And no, there are no prizes for guessing the right answer.
The performances are uniformly excellent. Ribeiro certainly gets the most out of his actors, with all the main characters being instantly natural and likeable: from the leads to Leo’s parents, to his grandmother, they all seem possessed of an innate warmth. But no one seems to experience any pain, or any real conflict – a few quickly resolved arguments notwithstanding. I certainly enjoyed it, and even got a bit choked up as the movie made its way to its happy ending. You could no more dislike The Way He Looks than you could dislike a video of a puppy giving a ride to a slightly smaller puppy.
Perhaps it comes down to personal taste, but whilst watching it I couldn’t help but compare it to Presque Rien; another film about a gay teenager’s first love but one with brimming with intensity, rage, passionate sex and a suicide attempt. Of course there’s room in cinema for stories which are, as Ribeiro’s short was described, ‘too kind and too nice’ as well as ones which are dark and troubling. But given the choice of a romance with attempted self-murder, or one which ends with the happy couple going on a midnight bike ride, I’ll always go for the former.
The film was presented by Eyes Wide Open Cinema which explores the past, present and future of queer cinema.
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