Invisible Boys, Stan review: a gloriously messy marvel

The 2017 Australian marriage equality plebiscite rumbles in the background of Invisible Boys, Nicholas Verso’s gusty TV adaptation of Holden Sheppard’s award-winning YA novel of the same name.

Shifting the novel’s setting to this momentous period in Australia’s LGBTQIA+ history (complete with former PM Malcolm Turnbull outrageously claiming credit for the plebiscite’s success) helps underline that while being out and proud in central Sydney of Melbourne is relatively easy, scoot to those cities’ furthest suburbs and not so much.

Head to rural Gero (Geraldton), where the desert drifts into the sea some 424km north of Perth, where ‘the wind blows so hard even the trees can’t grow straight,’ and it’s even trickier.

Invisible Boys: boys will be boys

Headstrong grunge rocker Charlie (Joseph Zada), a rebel seemingly without a care, refuses to tame his chameleonic rainbow of dyed hair and bristles at spinning his wheels performing pub rock and being forced to remove eyeliner at school every morning by Father Mulroney (David Lyons).

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He’s nursing old wounds after his live fast, die young dad (Khan Chittenden) checked out behind the wheel of his speeding car when he was a kid, a tragedy Charlie holds against his struggling mum (Hayley McElhinney).

He hasn’t even told his best and band mate Bec (Jade Baynes) that he’s gay, a status soon broadcast far and wide when Charlie’s busted hiding in the closet of a much older married man. A fact leapt upon by Looking for Alibrandi star Pia Miranda’s Anna, the mum of Charlie’s schoolmate Zeke (Aydan Calafiore). A religious zealot, the Italian-Australian blames Charlie for breaking up her friends’ marriage, rather than the creep who picked up an underage high schooler at a beat.

It’s no wonder the cute, goofy Zeke keeps his internet history to himself, fervently jerking off to the footy jock, Zach Blampied’s Hammer, who relentlessly bullies him. A self-flagellating fate far too many young gay lads will be familiar with.

The thing is, Hammer’s having his own freakouts thanks to his overbearing mum, Karla (Shareena Clanton), who will accept nothing less than an AFL call-up, performance anxiety at his failure to launch in the back of a car with girlfriend Rochelle (Mercy Cornwall), and the sneaking feeling his roughhousing of Zeke betrays pent-up passion.

Then there’s handsome farmer Matt (Joe Klocek), Charlie’s way more age-appropriate hook-up, who, on the surface, has his shit together more than the other three. Only his still waters run a little more turbulent than they appear. Can they step out of the shadows together, or will their sexuality remain invisible?

Invisible Boys: playing the game

Series director Verso and co-writers Sheppard, Allan Clarke, Enoch Mailangi and theatre whizz Declan Greene have done a brilliant job in bringing these lovely lads to the small screen for streaming service Stan. Maximising the book’s strongest elements, they also tease out fresh aspects, most successfully in an excellent tweak of Hammer’s story.

Impressive Yorta/Yorta and Wiradjuri actor Blampied (New Gold Mountain) kicks goals as Buddy Franklin-worshipping Hammer. His boofhead bravado hides a young man struggling with a twin dilemma. Not only is his emerging sexuality at odds with a code that’s yet to back an out-and-proud player in the upper echelons of the game, but his First Nations identity also brings its own battles as he faces down racism from fellow hopefuls.

In a grim but believable turn, no easy answers are provided here, despite the abundant support of his Aunty Doris (an always awesome Elaine Crombie) acting as a good cop counterweight to her sister’s bad cop intensity.

Hammer’s budding romance with Zeke is the beating Heartstopper of Invisible Boys, but with abundant Aussie swears and a lot more raunch fielded. It’s not quite the fairy-tale happy ever after, with a fantastical nod to this joint’s fraught colonial history that anyone who watched Zoë Coombs Marr’s magnificent Queerstralia will recognise.

Anna’s hectoring is a big part of this. While she’s written a touch too big – she thinks Holding the Man is porn – Miranda brings an insidious chill to her sparring with the fiancé of Zeke’s big bro Lorenzo (Jamie Ward), Vietnamese-Australian Nat (Joanna Tu). This thoughtful subplot sadly illuminates how successive waves of immigrants sometimes slam the door closed behind them.

Her grit, however thickly laid on, allows Calafiore’s softness to shine. You’ll want to give Zeke a massive hug and jump for joy when party shots lead to a big play, when he stands taller in the PE changing room and when he and Charlie stage a wedding intervention. There’s also a doomed if delightful dalliance with next-door neighbour Sabrina (Olivia Nardini), Anna’s preferred pairing, proving the road to coming out is often a little bent.

There’s an impish glee to Zada’s bolshy mischief that belies Charlie’s niggling insecurities, only amplified by the one-step forward, two-steps back dance with an increasingly inscrutable Matt. Watch out for Verso’s Boys in the Trees screening at a drive-in date, one of several scenes that increasingly hint at the tragic reality that not everyone gets the required amount of support on this journey.  

Verso and co strike the perfect balance between drama and gross-out comedy in navigating young men’s mental health and the barriers towards feeling safe in their skin. Embracing the punk spirit of Ana Kokkinos’ Head On and set to a stonking soundtrack from the likes of local heroes The Presets and American star Perfume Genius, Invisible Boys is the perfect antidote to a rising swell of anti-queer nonsense.

Much like Sheppard’s book, Invisible Boys is the gloriously messy marvel I wish I’d had access to as a tortured teen.

Invisible Boys premieres on Stan on 13 February 2025.

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