‘Big Boys’ Review: An Affecting Queer Coming-of-Age Reflection on Sexual Self-Discovery

David Rooney
·5 min read

There’s an everyday magical quality to the brief summer camping trip in which quiet yet formative changes take hold in Big Boys, Corey Sherman’s slender but lovely study of a chubby gay teen’s first steps toward self-acceptance. The stigma of body-shaming on queer kids in the early stages of their evolution is under-explored territory, refreshingly examined here less in its isolation than its incipient liberation — via time spent with a plus-size dude who exudes sexy, confident masculinity and a barrel-load of empathy.

The writer-director’s personal experience is threaded through every scene of a well-acted movie that’s sure to be a modest crowd-pleaser at LGBTQ festivals and could also land streamer exposure. The kind of young queer audiences who made Netflix’s Heartstoppers a hit should gravitate to this highly specific but relatable story, which will speak most directly to awkward-age boys struggling to see how their hefty frames might fit into a gay landscape that so idealizes the Adonis model of physical beauty.

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That said, the film captures with enormous sweetness feelings probably familiar to many queer adolescents still figuring out who they are — of insecurity, questioning and giddy crushes on frequently unattainable objects of desire.

Jamie (Isaac Krasner) is a 14-year-old culinary nerd more or less inured to the snarky digs of his older brother Will (Taj Cross), a jerk with minimal sensitivity. When their single mother, Nicole (Emily Deschanel), informs them that Jamie’s favorite cousin, Allie (Dora Madison), will be bringing her new boyfriend along on a weekend camping getaway with the boys, Jamie instantly complains that the trip is ruined. But the new addition, Dan (David Johnson III), turns out to be a fine specimen of beefy pulchritude, not unlike the gay neighbors Jamie eyes through his bedroom window.

At first, things look grim, as Dan talks basketball with Will while Jamie admits he’s not into sports. Barefoot Contessa is more his speed, adds his brother with a dismissive smirk. But Dan soon picks up on both Jamie’s unease and Will’s needling treatment of him. He goes out of his way to be inclusive with the younger boy, helping him pitch his tent, showing him how to light a campsite grill and acting suitably impressed when Jamie unpacks an array of herbs to spice up the burgers.

Appealing newcomer Krasner conveys Jamie’s gastronomical passion with such infectious enthusiasm, you might start wishing he had his own Food Network show. The young actor is also amusing when he’s furtively checking out Dan, who’s clearly a kind of role model — and/or romantic fixation — that’s completely new to him.

When Jamie insists on teaming up with Dan for word games and the older man christens them “The Big Boys,” you can practically see animated hearts dancing around Jamie’s head. That’s even before they annihilate their increasingly disgruntled opposition, Allie and Will. The scene also establishes a pattern of torn reactions in Allie, who seems mildly put out that her special relationship with Jamie has been usurped, but at the same time pleased to see him bonding with a man on whom she’s obviously quite keen.

Sherman is less confident — and his writing less original — when Will ropes in Jamie as his wingman to sneak off at night with some pilfered booze and meet two teenage girls, Quinn (Emma Broz) and Ericka (Marion Van Cuyck), staying at the campsite with their parents. While Will is off making out with blonde, conventionally attractive Quinn, Jamie is feigning drunkenness to avoid intimacy with Ericka, an anime geek who is used to guys wanting Quinn and not her.

The film is on firmer footing when it captures the warmth Dan shows Jamie and the teen’s hunger for it, babbling nervously and constantly finding excuses to hover around his cousin’s boyfriend.

At one point Dan tells him he knows what it’s like to be given a hard time by older brothers who called him fat. He encourages Jamie to stand up to Will, to not let him get away with so much. Moments like that spark Jamie’s erotic fantasies involving an older, sexier version of himself (Jack De Sanz) getting on intimate terms with a smoldering Dan. The scenes are funny, tasteful and a little corny, but maybe the erotic fantasies of 14-year-old gay boys are inherently corny?

Sherman’s script smartly maintain some ambiguity about the degree to which Jamie has acknowledged to himself that he might be gay — he denies it when Will asks him outright — but being around Dan seems to nudge him toward a full realization.

A long hike through the lakeside woods becomes an opportunity for Jamie to score some alone time with Dan when Allie and Will get tired of walking and decide to turn back. That extended interlude provides some catharsis when they get lost with no cellphone signal and the roles are briefly reversed. And a scene in which Jamie sustains an injury and Dan removes his T-shirt to dress the wound is both tender and cringingly funny.

It’s in those delicately observed moments, beautifully played by Krasner and Johnson, that Big Boys excels, elevating it beyond a thin narrative that could almost be a short film. It gains retroactive emotional heft in a concluding scene as Allie and Dan deliver the brothers back home and Jamie finds the courage to speak privately and somewhat openly with Dan.

Did Dan know on some subcutaneous level what the teen was going to say? That’s deliberately blurred in Johnson’s generous performance. His reaction is of a kind that most queer kids can only dream of, and yet it feels authentic to the story and characters, to the point where we’re left wondering how much of it, if any, Dan will later share with Allie.

The score by Los Angeles electronic musician Will Wiesenfeld, who records as Baths, is pretty, with its chiming notes and whispery vocals, if a bit over-used and sugary for my taste. But it’s of a piece with a touching, big-hearted movie that never feels like it’s outside looking in — instead it seems entirely connected to both the rawness and revelations of Jamie’s age. For teenagers who can see themselves in his experience, I suspect it will be very meaningful.

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