THOSE PEOPLE (****1/2)

(2015) Manhattan twenty-somethings Charlie (Jonathan Gordon) and Sebastian (Jason Ralph) have been friends for fifteen years, since childhood.  Both belong to the same small, intimate group of friends who party together and have each other's backs - but for the entire time he's known him Charlie has been pretty much in love with Sebastian, and it seems Sebastian is the only one unaware of it.  Both men are gay, but Sebastian has only ever seen Charlie as a friend, Charlie's friendship becoming all that more important when Sebastian's father is sent to jail for investor fraud, and the press seems intent on blaming Sebastian for not spilling the beans on his father's larceny.  Now mostly confined to his family's lavish apartment due to the stalking paparazzi, Sebastian begs for Charlie to move in and stay with him; a situation seemingly fraught with pain for Charlie, until he meets an older, handsome concert pianist named Tim (Haaz Sleiman) - who, for the first time, may be steering Charlie's love in another direction.  Those People may be one of those indie dramas that slips unobtrusively under your radar ... but it shouldn't.  Filled with spot-on performances (Gordon, Ralph and the always-terrific Sleiman head an extremely talented cast) and the real pangs of love and loss that most of us can relate to, no matter our sexual orientation (God knows we've all had that one friend we at least crushed on at one point, pining away for the day those feelings would hopefully be reciprocated), it would be an injustice for anyone to pass this off as a "gay film" and not see it.  I am wondering if the "Sebastian" character - who sometimes almost veers on being so needy that he's annoying (thankfully, Jason Ralph steers the character out of those waters before Sebastian gets there) - was modeled and named after the same Sebastian at the center of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, as the two are so alike; if so, it's a tribute to the film that it comes off more like an homage than a cheap copy of Waugh's classic novel.  A tenderhearted movie that feels very true to life and deserves to be seen by larger audiences than it will probably get.  Oh yeah, and be prepared to want to shake some sense into Sebastian ... wrap up Tim and take him home ... and, maybe, fall head over heels for Charlie.  (not rated)

THOSE PEOPLE trailer