Across the last few months we have seen some remarkable dramas depicting two young men falling in love. Moonlight scrutinised over the notion of restricted romance, while God’s Own Country studied man’s relationship with the land he inhabits – and Call Me By Your Name explores teenage infatuation. Icelandic coming-of-age tale Heartstone, by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, may not be as special an endeavour as the aforementioned trio, but it dips into each respective theme, and handles them all in an accomplished manner.

Set in a remote fishing village, we meet schoolboy Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and his best friend Christian (Blaer Hinriksson) across the course of a tempestuous summer, where they both discover a lot about themselves. For while the former is starting to feel newfound sexual affection for a local girl, the latter’s attentions are focused a little closer to home, as he develops feelings for his best friend. The pair share a close affinity, and Thor’s sisters and older boys from the neighbourhood like to poke fun at them for being gay, but while Thor persistently shakes off such accusations, Christian is left confused and isolated, just hoping he doesn’t let his true emotions be known.

HeartstoneGudmundsson does a fine job in capturing that demographic so deftly, particularly in his representation of how we cope with these overwhelming new emotions we go through at such an age, enriched too by the boy’s inability to understand how they feel about one another. It’s not just their sexuality which breeds this sense of internal perplexity, as they’re discovering themselves and new sexual encounters with girls, and also when alone. This sense of disorientation is one that is heightened and informed by the isolated landscape too, which is utilised effectively in this picture – not to mention the fact that having a small town means everybody knows who everybody is, as though living in a goldfish bowl, giving Christian no means of escape.

The lead performances by Einarsson and Hinriksson are nothing short of outstanding either, both giving so much conviction to the roles, and so nuanced at the same time. We can watch their performances and identity with relatable moments from our own teenage years, but we have the benefit of hindsight, and nostalgia. They’re living in that very period and have enough self-awareness to display emotions that we have no idea we’re conveying at the time. All of the characters that make up this piece are well-rounded too, each complete with their own narrative arc, and problems to contend with.

And yet the one character it does feel as though we carelessly deviate away from, is Christian. This is very much Thor’s movie, and while he too makes for a compelling protagonist, it does feel like a missed opportunity that the focus and balance isn’t shared more so between the two leads. You could even argue that Christian’s journey is the more intriguing of the two, though it’s a small criticism of an otherwise striking, indelible and profound debut for Gudmundsson.

Heartstone is released on November 17th.