The sensual yearning of Philippe Besson’s award-winning novel Lie with Me is writ large in director Olivier Peyon’s achingly tender adaptation. When celebrated author Stéphane reluctantly returns to his rural French hometown to accept an award, he’s forced to confront skeletons left in the closet decades ago. Upon agreeing to be the brand ambassador for a famous cognac celebrating its bicentennial, novelist Stéphane Belcourt returns to his hometown for the first time in many years. There’s something familiar about his ostensible tour guide, Lucas (Victor Belmondo, grandson of French acting legend Jean-Paul), something that stirs his memories of his first teenage love, Thomas (Julien de Saint Jean). With its bucolic rural European setting and parallel narratives set in the author’s youth as well as today, Peyon’s film combines the passion of Call Me by Your Name with a Proustian reflective wistfulness. However, Lie with Me stands on its own, a miraculous feat of adaptation with an uncommon understanding of queer sex and desire in both the spring and autumn of life.