With Jannis Niewöhner and André Hennicke. Directed by Piotr J. Lewandowski.
Apart from Call me by your Name, Jonathan is the best LGBT-film I saw last year. It is fresh, unaffected, emotional, beautifully photographed and touching without turning into a gay soap opera. It never gets side-tracked into sentimentality or overt emotion. An enigmatic young man, Jona, discovers that his dying father is in love with another man. How he handles this, especially upon meeting his dad’s lover, and how it affects his mother and his own life, form the backbone of an understated, low-key film in which images loaded with subtext are more important than what is being said. The power lies in the loaded silences. Niewöhner is a charismatic and brilliant find.
