The IMDB description of the Australian movie Jasper Jones (2017): "In the late '60s, two teenage boys join forces to solve a chilling mystery and navigate the prejudices and secrets of their small Australian town."
It's almost always a teenage boy and girl, so two boys together identifies them as a gay couple or at least a gay-subtext couple.
And "prejudices and secrets"? Homophobia and closeting!
The first partner is Levi Miller, who I recall from A Wrinkle in Time (2018). He also starred in Witch Mountain (2022), apparently a remake of the Disney classic.
The second partner is either Kevin Long, who appears only in Jasper Jones, or aboriginal actor Aaron L. McGrath. From the poster, I'm thinking Aaron.
But I'm not going to invest without doing some research.
The trailer:
Scene 1: Levi is reading a book in bed. His mother comes in and kisses the top of his head, an Australian custom that makes me cringe.
Scene 2: It's too dark to make out much, but it looks like Aaron peering through a fence and then grabbing Levi as he walks through the woods.
Scene 3: Levi at the breakfast table, being depressed. Mom touches his head again.
Scene 4: Um...it's not two teenage boys joining forces, it's Levi and a girl!
Scene 5: A roomful of rabid bigot in the Corrigan Town Hall. I guess they're bigoted against Aboriginals. Levi, depressed, sits in the audience and gazes at The Girl, on stage, next to Cooper Van Grootel.
Scene 6: Out in the woods, again too dark to see anything, Levi talks to Aaron, who points out the word "Sorry" carved into a tree trunk.
Scene 7: A montage of Levi walking through town while bigoted townsfolk glare at him, past a farm where a bearded guy yells angrily at him, his dad (Dan Wylie, right) yelling at his Mom, riding bikes with Kevin Long, and then sitting on the grass with him. So is the second partner Aaron or Kevin?
Left: Dan Wylie's d*ck. Gotta have some d*ck pics, or be lousy review.
More after the break
Scene 8: People screaming at each other, guys dragging Aaron off. I can't figure out what's going on from this montage. On to Wikipedia
Aaron, an outcast in the town due to his Aboriginal heritage, is secretly dating the daughter of the town mayor. When she is murdered, he knows that the will be blamed, so he and Levi hide the body.
Levi is dating the mayor's other daughter, and his mother is having an affair with the police chief (Matt Nable).
Meanwhile Kevin experiences racial prejudice while trying out for the school sports team.
Levi pins the murder on the reclusive Mad Jack Lionel, played by Hugo Weaving. It's been a long, strange trip since he played a drag queen in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." Is it my imagination, or are we more closeted now than we were in 1994?
Left: Hugo's bum
He turns out to be Aaron's grandfather: he kicked his son out of the house when he married an Aboriginal woman, and then had an auto accident that led to her death.
But that's a red herring. Actually the mayor, Myles Pollard, was s*xually abusing his daughter, so she hanged herself. The other daughter, Levi's girlfriend, gets even by setting the house on fire.
When the mystery is resolved, Levi's girlfriend dumps him, his mother dumps his dad and Aaron leaves town. But, on the bright side, Dad finishes his novel, and Levi and his girlfriend reunite.
OMG, this sounds horrible, with every single sadness trope that you can imagine thrown in. And in what way are two teenage boys "joining forces"? It's Levi and his girlfriend.
Another day, another queerbaiting movie
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