Writer-director Anthony Schatteman’s assured debut boasts a standout lead performance from Lou Goossens as a 14-year-old boy struggling with self-discovery.

At first glance, Young Hearts seems to resemble Lukas Dhont’s Close — in its rural Belgian town setting and its focus on two early teenage boys navigating the tricky boundaries between friendship and romance. But closer acquaintance reveals Flemish filmmaker Anthony Schatteman’s first feature to be something more in line with Heartstopper or Love, Simon, entirely without the tragic dimensions of Dhont’s Oscar-nominated drama. Impressive newcomer Lou Goossens plays a 14-year-old boy thrown into emotional confusion by his attraction to a new neighbor in a film whose queer positivity should be a balm to LGBTQ kids wrestling with their sexuality as well as to parents struggling with acceptance.

Since premiering in Berlin’s Generation sidebar earlier this year, it has been playing the summer festivals and will open in the U.S. through Strand Releasing at an unscheduled date in the fall.

When a new family moves in across the street, Elias falls into an easy friendship with Alexander (Marius De Saeger), who’s also 14 but taller and physically more developed. Having moved there from French-speaking Brussels, Alexander also gives off the relaxed air of a cool kid, with his floppy hair and skater-chic wardrobe. He’s confident but never cocky, slipping into Elias’ circle of friends with an openness to which all of them respond.

Stopping by the river while biking home from school, the two boys have a conversation about love. Elias confesses that while he and Valerie are supposedly together, he’s unclear about what love should feel like, while Alexander casually reveals he was in love with a boy last year. The change that spreads across Goossens’ expressive face as he contemplates his new friend with a mixture of curiosity and surprise is the quiet prelude to a whole wave of unfamiliar feelings as their bond deepens.

While Elias has been bullied at school, Alexander tells him he took up judo because of similar experiences. A group of seniors toss a homophobic taunt their way, but Alexander shows them he’s not intimidated.

While Elias doesn’t pull away from the kiss, he’s mildly freaked out by it, sparking a change into more withdrawn behavior that his perceptive mother picks up on immediately. He starts keeping his distance from Alexander even if his longings are clear. A day trip to Brussels, where they visit Alexander’s aunt and uncle (Florence Hebbelynck, Wim Opbrouck) at their club helps Elias loosen up a little; he even seems pleased to be introduced as Alexander’s “petit copain.”

An extended shot in which DP Pieter Van Campe’s camera slowly closes in on Elias’ enraptured face as a drag performer rehearsing at the club (Lady Lana) sings a number about embracing life is just lovely.

But it takes more than a romantic ballad to get Elias over his fears, causing him to back away nervously when Alexander gives him a hug in public. He tries forcing himself to commit to being with Valerie. In an amusing nod to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Elias and Valerie dress for her “famous duos” costume party as the young Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in those roles — even if Elias later admits to Alexander that he’s never seen the film. Schatteman pushes the reference even further by not once but twice mimicking the shot in which Romeo gazes with lovelorn eyes through a fish tank.