If I Tell You

Bluesky

When “something happens”, a grandmother (Carol Kane) explains to her 12-year-old grandson Michael (Etienne Kellici), it doesn’t just happen to that person – it affects everyone around them. Michael’s mother Rosemary (Allison Miller) already understands this – and knows that people are eager to share and form opinions on information even when they don’t understand it. This is one reason why, when she acquires a black eye, she keeps the reason for it secret – not realising for some time that this has led Michael to develop troubling suspicions. She doesn’t want her experience to become public property; she just wants life to go back to the way it was before, but as the situation develops, it proves difficult for to guard her own privacy and protect her son.

Adapted from the book Closed Doors by Lisa O’Donnell, Tessa Blake’s sensitive film keeps the adult drama in the background for much of its running time, and viewers may take a while to decipher exactly what has happened, as we see almost all of it through Michael’s eyes. This is perhaps the most difficult pointin life for him to have to contend with it, when he’s going through a lot of big changes. A crush on his friend Marianne (McKenzie Hays) is prompting feelings of jealousy which he doesn’t fully recognise or understand. The interest shown in him by another friend, Alice (Kennedi Butler) is going completely over his head. He’s growing apart from best friend Paul (Zelalem Oestreich), and is increasingly troubled by the homophobic behaviour of an older bully towards his friend Ralph (Tiegen Fryberger).

Nostalgic moments pepper the film; the kids stealing a bottle of beer only to grimace and spit when they drink from it; running races out in the woods and chasing one another around the local cemetery. As the intermediary generation has less and less time for them, the grandmother (scatterbrained but wise as Kane’s characters often are) becomes his source of advice and reassurance, a guide to the adult responsibilities Michael must now begin to assume. But as he finds himself caught between different emotional and moral pressures, he is about to make a decision which will turn everything on its head – and, perhaps, provide an unexpected opportunity for deeper connections to form.

It’s a difficult framework to use successfully, and sometimes a little too incoherent. Still, Michael is a likeable character, and Miller is impressive in letting viewers see and understand what she’s going through despite her character’s attempts to keep everything on an even keel for his sake. Kane, always generous, only occasionally lets slip that she could act all the rest of them off the screen. What emerges is an engaging drama with important things to say, not least of which is that life goes on and even after horrific experiences there can be times of unexpected joy.

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