Moffie

It's a coming-of-age movie that plays like a thriller...

I really liked this very much. It's quite moving.

The filmmaking is strong and confident throughout, while Mr. Brummer's performance is a constant revelation.

It's an usual perspective for an apartheid film, something the director - who is gay and mixed race - has acknowledged initially recoiling from. But that point-of-view only makes Hermanus' mission all the more laudable.

Although Moffie is competently executed, its genre-straddling will leave you vaguely unsatisfied if you decide too quickly the kind of movie it should be.

I was more interested in asking the director about his choices than watching them play out, reminding me of Gene Siskel's question about whether a documentary about the film would be more interesting than the film itself.

Hermanus's efforts are the most impressive elements displayed, and that craft is what makes this story so compelling.

Moffie begs the sickening question: in a system fraught with racism and homophobia, just who is the real enemy anyway?

The intense film explores a young gay man's coming of age on the Angolan war front in the early '80s, when being queer was treated as an illness that needed to be cured.

Kai Luke Brummer is a revelation in the central role, his introverted performance buoying the plot with nuance and charisma.