Valentine’s Day might’ve came and went, but the romantic movie event of the season arrives in theaters today: Of An Age, an unforgettable gay drama from Macedonian-Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski.
Partially inspired by Stolevski’s own experiences with coming out and coming-of-age in Melbourne (after emigrating from North Macedonia at a young age), the film takes us back to 1999—at least initially.
Kol (Elias Anton) is a 17-year old amateur ballroom dancer, whose family moved to Australia from Serbia some years earlier. He’s in final rehearsals for a big recital when he gets a phone call: It’s his best friend and dance partner, Ebony (Hattie Hook), who’s stranded hours away after a night of reckless partying.
Related: ‘Of An Age’ Is a Beautiful Queer Coming-Of-Age Story Full of What-Ifs
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In a panic, Kol makes a plan to get Ebony back to safety, enlisting her older brother Adam (Thom Green)—who he hadn’t previously met—to drive him. As the two weave through traffic, there’s an obvious attraction between them, even if Kol isn’t quite ready to admit it.
Over the next 24 hours, the pair grows closer, while bracing for an inevitable heartbreak: Adam’s moving to Argentina, and they can’t help but wonder if they’re ending something special before it even has a chance to start.
Without giving too much else away, the film’s third act jumps ahead in time to 2010, checking in on their lives 11 years after their fateful encounter. Do they still have that spark?
Stolevki’s achingly romantic film will have you swooning from the moment Kol and Adam meet to its very last frame. As their relationship blossoms from nervous flirtation to something more over a limited stretch of time, Of An Age recalls similar love stories like Richard Linklater’s beloved Before trilogy, or Andrew Haigh’s gorgeous Weekend, which also focuses on the intense connection between two gay men who’ve just met.
Every detail of Of An Age is thoughtfully crafted, but its main selling point is the chemistry between its leads, Anton and Green, who bring such naturalism to their performances and make the pair easy to fall for.
Since the film will be the first time most American audiences will be seeing these two on screen, we thought we’d offer up a quick crash course on these two rising stars:
Elias Anton
Amazingly, Of An Age is only Anton’s second film. The 24-year old Melbourne-born actor first appeared in a one-off guest role in the long-running Australian soap, Neighbours, in 2016. But he made an even bigger splash later that year as the lead of Barracuda, a mini-series about a young swimmer who faces pushback in his journey to become a record-breaking athlete.
The series was adapted from a book of the same name, which was inspired by real-life gay Olympic medalist Daniel Kowalski. At the time, Anton spoke to press about being emotionally invested in the role, despite not being gay himself.
He has since appeared in the ensemble drama Australia Day, but Of An Age represents his first lead film role. Next, he’ll star in Sunflower, another Australian queer coming-of-age story that is currently in post-production.
Thom Green
Green is a professionally trained actor and dancer, born in Australia in 1991. (Ironically, Anton plays a dancer in Of An Age, but Green actually is one in real life.)
He began his career when he was still a teen, making his screen debut in the 2007 made-for-TV crime drama, Emerald Falls. That same year, he nabbed his first theater role, in a production based on the popular Australian children’s book series, Lockie Leonard.
He’s kept busy in the 15 years since, including a recurring role in the family beach drama Home And Away in 2009, and as a major character in the series Dance Academy (which co-starred Keiynan Lonsdale) from 2010 to 2012. His first American production was 2012’s Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, a web series based on the popular video game.
Goran Stolevski
And we’d be remiss if we didn’t again mention filmmaker Goran Stolevski. After his family moved to Australia when he was a teenager, he began to study film, writing and directing 25 narrative shorts between 2007 and 2018. (Fun fact: He also worked in the writer’s room for the miniseries Barracuda—which stars Anton.)
His feature debut, You Won’t Be Alone, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022 in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section. Co-starring Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), it’s an artful folk horror about a young peasant girl who is turned into a witch, and learns about the world for the first time while shapeshifting and exploring other people’s lives.
While promoting Of An Age, Stolevski has revealed he’s already in post-production on his third feature, Housekeeping For Beginners, about a queer woman who reluctantly becomes a mother to her partner’s child.
Of An Age represents a great, global introduction to Stolevski, Anton, and Green—three names we anticipate we’ll be hearing a lot more about in the year to come.
Of An Age opens in theaters everywhere on February 17.
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JClark
Smokin’ hot?
BrokebackBob
I was thinking the same thing!
SDR94103
smoking meth hot. It’s different.
Pier
Im so offended and shook. Oppression is more like. Offended and oppressed. We need more not less. We need less not more. Up is down in this world today while everyone suffers without lack of representation or something like that . Where are the gays do you know these gays
Kangol2
Another “coming out story”? Sheesh. Why do so many of these filmmakers not ask, especially in 2023, why don’t I make a film about after gay or bi people come out? (There are increasingly more trans stories, so I’ll set those to the side for the moment.) What about 5, 10, 25, 50 years after people have come out (sometimes multiple times)? As for smoking hot…well, each to his. or their own.
Bmac
This article, credited to the “editors,” in the very first sentence:
“Valentine’s Day might’ve came and went…”
AYFKM?!
It should read, “might’ve come and gone…”
And these are the EDITORS writing this.
We are so f***ed…
Man About Town
I noticed that right away, and it happens ALL the time. It can drive you nuts, especially if you’re a professional writer and editor, as I am.
Look at Sara Whitman, a so-called writer who earned a Master’s Degree in Journalism (“with honors”) from Hofstra University. Her sloppy writing is constantly filled with stupid errors in basic grammar.
I guess some institutions of learning are pretty lax about who they honor degrees with these days.
nm4047
you don’t think there is an actual person writing this rubbish. I just assumed it’s predominantly done by a bot. Also may explain why Queerty thinks these are ‘smokin hot’.
SFMike
But sadly, we are at a point that even pointing out Sara Whitman’s short comings in the grammar department will just be called misogyny and another attack on a successful woman by envious bitter males.
james7
Editors: the difference between the right word, and the almost right word is the difference between “lightening” and “lightening bug”.
nitejonboy
Doubt I’ll check this one out, but I did LOVEEE the director’s previous film, YOU WON’T BE ALONE. It’s hard to make a horror movie where you feel sympathy for the monster, especially if it’s a shape shifting folk witch.
Walker
Written by “Editors”? This is a put-on, right? I was a writer and copy editor for major newspapers for years; now I am an editorial hiring manager in another industry. In both cases, if someone had handed in work like this (and what dominates the site these days) as a sample, or had returned this after an editorial test, we would have been sharing it around with hysterical laughter five minutes after the applicant left.
Please tell me this site is written by AI and not that the standards of media are now so low that someone who can’t string a sentence together gets to have a fruitful career in “editing” because they impressed someone at an internship or are related to someone.
dicki
this is the 2nd post to suggest that a bot must have written this to explain the mistake.
hysterical to think that an Al would make this kind of stupid mistake. only a human would think that, if you catch my drift
ridgelineranger
Smokin’ hot? Descendants of the convicts that were sent to Australia so many years ago.
Trev
First of all ridgelineranger not all Australians come from convict stock we all have different heritage. Also Americans do have descendants from early 17th & 18th century. sent for similar convictions. Perhaps you might take a trip to Australia and learn a bit about this country and might realise how you live in such an insular country. With regard to Of An Age most of the comments appear to coming from sour puss people who have nothing better than to pick something to pieces or perhaps missed out on a great romance or have forgotten about life. Be happy that some positive gay films are being made and going out into mainstream theatres for not only gay audiences to see but everyone. Here in Australia it has been playing in a lot of theatres.
Saps48
14 comments about semantics, spelling, and the alleged or not hotness of the leads. Let me be the first to actually comment on the movie: it’s an achingly beautiful, realistic and heartbreaking tale of first love and whether that feeling stays with you for years to come. The final scene is so simple yet moving, I’m practically teary-eyed just remembering it as I write these words.
dicki
thanks for reminding all these simple humans what’s important; incredible, isn’t it?