Like Me: Gal Amitai and Yoav Keren – Breaking Glass Pictures
Keeping pace with its free-spirited gay hero — a Tel Aviv high school senior named Tom — the indie drama Like Me (★★☆☆☆) makes broad, swift swings between emotional highs and lows.
In short order, Tom, portrayed by newcomer Yoav Keren, bounces from a threesome with a handsome gay couple, to being informed by his widower dad Gideon (Danny Geva) that, based on some tell-tale queerness Gideon found on the kid’s phone, he’s giving Tom two weeks to get out of the house.
Writer-director Eyal Kantor’s feature debut treads credible ground depicting Tom’s confusion as he processes being rejected by his emotionally distant dad. He still parties when he can with straight bestie Gilad (Mendi Barsheshet) and Gilad’s new Instagram-influencer girlfriend Noa (Roni Adler), but the hurt and anger seething beneath the smiles can surface when he least expects.
During a photo shoot, Rami (Gal Amitai), a smitten photographer twice Tom’s age, directs model Tom to pour that pain out, resulting in the most persuasively raw moments of Keren’s performance. Elsewhere, the actor appears in need of stronger direction to convey Tom’s complex, sometimes contradictory actions and urges.
Especially when those actions seem contradictory to common sense and reality, like when Tom intentionally trashes his bike, to create an excuse for running late on his Pizza Hut deliveries.
Sure, to embellish the fib, he lets the bike fall onto the pavement, where he tosses a handful of dirt over it and on his clothes and face. But he also violently kicks and stomps on the bike, his main mode of transportation throughout the rest of the movie’s shaky handheld shots of him biking the city streets.
Like Me: Mendi Barsheshet and Yoav Keren – Breaking Glass Pictures
Tom saves his tip, but the moment, rather than coming across as a clever payoff, points to the same awkward direction that continually centers Tom’s ungainly dancing as seductive or alluring. In fact, the movie opens on a short clip of Tom dancing, ends with an extended video of him dancing to funk-pop trio half•alive’s “Still Feel,” and several times features him dancing with friends at parties, or flirting with Rami during photo shoots.
Meant to express Tom’s queer joy and youthful independence, his freestyle moves don’t generally express any sexy sense of rhythm or physical confidence. Keren, who doesn’t dance like someone professionally trained, might have improvised Tom’s dance-like-no-one’s-watching flails and twists, and that’s fine. But the reliance on dance as a thematic touchstone perhaps warranted the contributions of a choreographer to find a language of movement that Keren actually speaks fluently.
As is, the desired effect doesn’t register decisively. The performance and staging are more convincing in scenes showing the intimate closeness between Tom and Gilad. Their attraction builds as the pair rehearse their amorous roles in a school production of The Picture of Dorian Gray. And Gilad takes it upon himself to teach his childhood friend how to caress a girl before moving in for a kiss.
The will-they-or-won’t-they stays headed in one predictable direction, but Barsheshet, playing the typically wishy-washy one in the relationship, adds a frisson of tension to Gilad’s dance with possible bisexuality. Tom’s own indecisive behavior — pining for Gilad’s attention, then running to Rami whenever Gilad ignores or mistreats him — also plays out honestly.
By comparison, the running subtext about how all these young people’s behavior is warped by their compulsion to craft stories for social media consumption feels forced and dated — like an ill-timed dancer, just missing the beat of a familiar tune.
Like Me is available on VOD and digital platforms, including iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, and local cable & satellite providers, and on DVD. Visit www.bgpics.com.
Is willowy Londoner Bella truly going mad, or is her enigmatic husband Jack carrying out a devious plot to convince her she's losing her mind? And if so, to what end? In modern terms, Bella is desperately pondering whether Jack is trying to gaslight her into thinking she's going insane.
The terminology and the plot of Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson's Deceived, now at Everyman Theatre, derive from Patrick Hamilton's Victorian thriller Gas Light, which premiered in 1938, before being adapted into the Oscar-winning 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman as distressed newlywed Paula.
Ihab Mustafa El Mahmoud was arrested in West Palm Beach after allegedly trying to run down members of an LGBTQ running group during a meet-up in a local park. The Florida man faces two counts of aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony and one count of reckless driving.
El Mahmoud could also face hate crime charges or bias enhancements for allegedly targeting the group because of their sexual orientation.
According to West Palm Beach police, El Mahmoud allegedly took offense at what he perceived as a comment about his sexual orientation when a runner asked if he was at Howard Park for the "Night Runners West Palm Beach" group's regular meet-up.
The Capital Pride Alliance is moving the 2026 Capital Pride celebration to the third week of June -- one week later than usual -- to avoid overlapping with major events tied to President Donald Trump's June 14 birthday and preparations for the nation's 250th anniversary. Pride weekend will run June 20-21, with the parade on Saturday and the festival and concert on Sunday.
Last year, the Trump administration marked the president's birthday and the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Armed Forces with a downtown military parade. This year, all national parks will offer free entry on June 14, and the White House is expected to host several Ultimate Fighting Championship matches on the White House lawn to draw large crowds for Trump's 80th birthday and the country's Semiquincentennial celebrations.
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