Unspoken **** (2024, Charlie Korman, Katherine Kamhi, Michael Zapesotsky) – Classic Movie Review 13,425

Charlie Korman stars in the 2024 film Unspoken as a Jewish closeted gay teenager who finds a love letter written to his late grandfather by another man, so he sets out to find the person.

Debut writer/ director Jeremy Borison’s delicately handled 2024 drama film Unspoken tells a fresh and lovely coming-of-age, coming-out story. Charlie Korman stars as Noam Stein, a young Modern Orthodox Jew, a closeted gay teenager negotiating his way in a strongly Jewish religious community.

Noam enjoyed a deep bond with his grandfather, who has just died, and he has inherited his beautiful voice and, ahem, his love of old Broadway showtunes. While Noam and his mother are searching through the grandfather’s stuff for a will, he finds an old box with a note inside written in German and signed by M, a secret compartment with a photograph of two men, and an engagement ring.

Convinced this is a love letter written to his grandfather by another man, his curiosity is wildly excited, so he sets out to find the person, against the wishes of the mother.

Unspoken sets out to entertain as well as educate. Noam and his classroom new best friend Jonah (Michael Zapesotsky) start to investigated the gay victims of the holocaust in a school project prompted by their teacher declaring there were six million deaths at the hands of the Nazis, and incurring her wrath by mentioning there were actually 12 million, including gays, gypsies and the mentally and physically handicapped.

Noam is thrilled to have this new friend helping him find the identity of his late grandfather’s friend as they meanwhile research the Pink Triangle holocaust. Via the library and Internet, they discover a lack of research and knowledge in the subject, but learn homosexuality remained illegal in German for 20 years after World War Two, and that gays interned by the Nazis were just transferred to jails after the war. As Noam gets to feel closer and closer to his friend, they find clues to the identity of his late grandfather’s friend, and then there is a breakthrough.

Noam is a very bright and clever kid, but it turns out that he’s going to make two huge mistakes by using all the evidence he has to jump to the wrong conclusions, because these are the conclusions he would like.

Along the way, he alienates his mother and father, not difficult in the case of the highly unsympathetic mother, his ‘girlfriend’, a clingy classmate who happens to like him and would like more, and his best buddy, whom he just abandons in favour of his new best friend.

His older sister, about to marry, stays on his side, and he acquires a new pal, the only out gay in school apparently, whom he doesn’t treat with much respect.

Maybe it’s not always very subtle, but it is always very good, a crowd-pleaser, hopefully making friends and influencing people. Charlie Korman is certainly a little charmer in the main role, and so is the film. It is a little sentimental, but it is very sweet, and it ends up in a good place, with a satisfying and a really quite subtle conclusion.

Plus there is glorious use of the ultimate showtune ‘Someone to Watch over Me’. Noam is persuaded to sing it after the grandfather’s funeral, and he sings it again at the end as a big coming of age, coming out show-stopping moment. He sings it with its female lyrics. It’s a very gay moment, and it works a treat.

Unspoken screened at the BFI Flare London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival on March 14, 2024.

‘Someone to Watch Over Me’

The 1926 song ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ is composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, assisted by Howard Dietz who came up with the title and claimed that he helped write the lyrics. It was written for the musical Oh, Kay! (1926) and sung on Broadway by Gertrude Lawrence holding a rag doll that Gershwin said he found in a toy shop in Philadelphia. Lawrence released the song as a medium-tempo single that reached number two on the US charts in 1927.

It was written as a fast and jazzy up-tempo rhythm tune but later recorded in a slow ballad style. The definitive slow torch song version was first released by Lee Wiley in 1939,  followed by Margaret Whiting in 1944. It was recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1946 for his first album The Voice of Frank Sinatra, and again in 1954 for the film Young at Heart, and notably covered by Ella Fitzgerald (1950 and 1959).

Ridley Scott’s 1987 American neo-noir romantic thriller film Someone to Watch Over Me includes the song, recorded by Sting.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,425

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