By Sarah Kurchak

Dir: Joseph Amenta. Canada, 2022. Good cinema has the power to change the way you see the world. But spending an entire festival immersed in the best that current film has to offer can also change the way you see cinema. You can see what artists around the world are doing well, and start to notice the occasional hole in the game you’d never really thought about before. This TIFF, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how difficult it is to portray a simple moment of joy on screen. How, even in otherwise good films, attempts to capture that emotion can feel awkward or forced.

And then, on the last day of press screenings, I saw Soft (previously announced as Pussy.)

It wasn’t just refreshing to see, though, it was beautiful in its own right. Even in a festival—or a world—more consistently populated with great recreations of joy, Soft’s giggles, asides, dances, and screams between its three young stars would stand out.

This isn’t to say that Soft is only about the good times, though. Writer/director Joseph Amenta’s debut feature does not hesitate to explore the complexities of its three young racialized queer Toronto friends’s lives over the course of an eventful summer vacation. Through smart and empathetic writing, direction, and performances, the characters’ dynamics both within the group and outside of it are richly drawn. Tony (Zion Matheson) has a supportive mom, but even a mother’s love can’t single-handedly protect her from everything the world has to offer, and her friends aren’t always fair to her. Otis (Harlow Joy) isn’t out at home, and sometimes his found family wind up on the receiving end of the frustrations and confusion he feels for a family that loves him but doesn’t necessarily understand him. Julien (Matteus Lunot) has been kicked out of his home and is living with Dawn (Miyoko Anderson), a mother figure who radiates all of the love, protection, and support that far too much of this cruel world has denied her. When Dawn goes missing, Julien’s already fraught young life is thrown into a tailspin.

Throughout their highs and lows, the three friends both celebrate and grieve together. They get up to classic high school mischief together. They struggle side by side and occasionally, briefly, against each other. And they cling to each other.

Which makes those moments of happiness and how wonderful they’re written, performed, and shot, all the more important. And even more potent. They’re not just well-captured moments of lightness. In such a nuanced and thoughtful film about young queer lives, these scenes become beautiful tributes to queer joy in al of its magic, rebellion, and restorative power. 4/5 stars.