I Am Jonas

I Am Jonas

This film teases viewers into exploring the trauma at the root of the central character, Jonas. We're introduced to him in high school experiencing an unknown terror that's apparently flashing back. Jumping forward 18 years, Jonas appears again as a sex addict ruining his life and relationships, barely hanging on to a semblance of middle-class existence and finally ending up essentially homeless. In his grasp on sanity, Jonas pursues a new character who holds some unknown significance to him. This relationship ends up revealing Jonas's original life-changing teenage trauma. In a good film, this would lead Jonas to some type of emotional or spiritual awakening, a life-changing revelation. However, in this film, it's simply wasted, and Jonas and the other character wander off into a meaningless scene that is a mysterious reference to an early conversation in the film 18 years prior. But it has no particular meaning. It's just there to be stylish, maybe provocative. It's the deep mysteriousness of an ending that doesn't mean anything. Are we supposed to think WOW, THAT'S SO DEEP!!! It like bad rock songs from the 1960s trying so hard to be deep they're stupefyingly shallow. I'm really sorry I wasted my time watching this film. I thought it held real promise, but you can't fix a bad script with production value.

First of all I won't spoil anything. "Jonas" is an incredible movie, with a story so thoroughly develop you won't want to miss it. The story develops on two timelines in a really clever way and the mystery is revealed in such a thought-out manner that honestly you'll stay glued to the screen. It's been a long while since I saw a movie developing and revealing the plot so well. As for the actors, their acting is wonderful. The younger actors as well play incredibly well. Nothing feels fake or rushed or inauthentic. It's really a movie you shouldn't miss!

This film is a good example of French films. It has minimal dialog, what little there is is oblique, pretentious and irrelevant. The cinematography and acting are both bizarre, and includes the usual staring into space or at each other. The story is randomly told by a script that makes absolutely no sense. One has to wonder why films like this are made at all! Watch at your own risk as you will never get back the time you have wasted!

I started watching this movie out of pure curiosity. Being gay and having seen the likes of "Love, Simon" "Alex Strangelove" and others, I wanted to watch something that differed from them... And boy did this one deliver. The movie starts you off immediately with present day Jonas in a situation that we have very little context about, over the course of the movie between flashbacks and present day the story gets filled in. However, the whole thing doesn't fall into place until the end of the movie. The movie is so well crafted and the actors are brilliant, especially young Jonas and Nathan and the excitement of Jonas figuring himself out was something all too familiar to me! Then end of the movie had me in tears as all the pieces fell into place and left me shocked! I definitely think this is a movie with watching and experiencing!

While I enjoyed watching, it never really grabbed me. I just felt like the two boys their relationship felt a bit lacking as did the whole trauma story line . It all just felt a little undercooked.

Hauntingly tragic story of young love and innocence broken. Told from 2 time periods this sensitively told french movie tells of a night of tragedy that would forever leave a scar on our main protagonist Jonas. The director leaves it till the last few scenes for the viewer to put all the pieces together and then have us screaming for answers and resolutions that by the end credits we know are never going to come and we leave the movie, like all the characters, with a sense of hope, tinged with despair.

I saw the wonderful Felix Maritaud in BPM, and hope to get a copy of Sauvage, but in this, Jonas, again, a sublime performance from him, as was the case with all the actors here. And yes, I shed a few tears at the end. Beautiful and sad and as the two stories come together, you understand why Jonas is such a flawed adult, haunted by what happened in his youth. The writing and directing excellent also. This is Art, simple as that. Give me films like Jonas any day over the many embarrassingly cringeworthy gay films out there (usually from the U.S). Bravo to all involved in the creation of Jonas.

The texture of the film kinda reminds me of Halt and Catch Fire. Jonas's seek for reconciliation with himself parallels with his search for his lover. Actually I don't think they went as far as lovers, and they were more like teenage crush, but his hallucination of Nathan is still poignant. It's more about how an incident in your teenage years, how some people at that time, are going to determine your emotional reaction to subsequent events in those years leading to your adulthood, even to your middle age. They are haunting you at the most nonchalant or irrelevant moment of your life.