Like Me *** (2022, Yoav Keren, Mendi Barsheshet, Gal Amitai, Danny Geva) – Classic Movie Review 13,602

The bold Israeli LGBTQ drama film Like Me (2022) is lit up by a fearless by Yoav Keren as pizza delivery boy Tom, who starts a relationship with a demanding older photographer, while secretly being in love with his best buddy Gilad.

The bold, provocative, exciting Israeli coming-of-age LGBTQ drama film Like Me (2022) is lit up by a frank, fearless and free performance by Yoav Keren as Tom, a high school senior who is required by his father (Danny Geva) to find a new residence in two weeks. Just not be there any more when he gets back from his trip.

The desperate Tom, working as a pizza delivery boy and a part-time rent boy but aspiring to be an actor, finds himself propelled into a difficult, demanding relationship with Rami (Gal Amitai) a manipulative fashion/ glamour photographer who is older and more worldly wise, not to say more world weary, than him. Rami is keen to photograph Tom, and seems to want to pay him and help him, as well as exploit him.

But Tom is a romantic and a dreamer, and is secretly in love with his apparently straight long-term close friend Gilad (Mendi Barsheshet), who has a hard-to-impress trophy girlfriend and is in acting class with him. Gilad is trying also trying to have a career as an actor, and trying to enlist in the army, but neither idea is going well, as his TV job is stalled and and the army have just rejected him as a psychopath. It’s a case, as he says, of the whore and the psychopath. No good will come of it. Or will it?

Tom has boldness and determination on his side, as well as his photogenic good looks. Both boys have so much going for them that it’s frustrating and sad, though realistic, to see them struggling so badly. Getting started, and finding your feel, isn’t easy these days, particularly if you’re gay or bisexual, but then it never was. These boys will survive, maybe prosper, either alone or together, somehow.

Cast:
– Yoav Keren: Tom
– Mendi Barsheshet: Gilad
– Gal Amitai: Rami
– Danny Geva: Tom’s Father
– Itamar Malul: Himself
– Roni Nadler: Noa
– Atalya Zehavi: Acting Teacher
– Oded Menaster: Gilad’s Father

Director: Eyal Kantor
Writers: Didi Lubetzky, Eyal Kantor
Music: Itay Amramù
Producers: Eyal Kantor, Yoav Keren
Production: Toni Films Production

Eyal Kantor is also the director of the 2024 film The Binding, also starring Yoav Keren.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,602

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