Rialto (BFI London Film Festival) review – a story of mutual support and therapy at a price, as secrets are brought into the light

Rialto offers an intimate character study of a man on the verge of emotional collapse and a teenage hustler trying to hold his life together by any means.

Based on Mark O’Halloran’s stage play “Trade”, Peter Mackie Burns’s Rialto is a stunning and nuanced journey into repression, guilt, belonging, and identity through the complex relationship between a teenage rent boy and a father whose life is spiralling out of control.

In O’Halloran and Mackie Burns’ tale, two men sit on the verge of society, one through hardship and the other through self-repression. Colm (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) has spent his life working the docks of Dublin, his very existence symbolic of the steel units he cares for, as he compartmentalises his life.

Following the death of his controlling father, a man he could never please, and the growing risk of redundancy at work, Colm turns to alcohol as a crutch, but booze isn’t enough as he seeks sexual release through a secret toilet rendezvous with a local rent boy called Jay (Tom Glynn-Carney). However, as he shuffles into the cubicle with the blond-haired boy, fear and apprehension surround him, and the encounter quickly fizzles into anxiety and regret. But Colm has dropped his wallet, and the savvy young hustler has picked it up, knowing there is an opportunity to scam the nervous “straight” man for money. But a relationship that starts as blackmail soon morphs into something different as both men become a crutch for one another, as a deep exploration of masculinity and sexuality comes into view.

Rialto offers an intimate character study of a man on the verge of emotional collapse and a teenage hustler trying to hold his life together by any means. The sexuality of Jay and Colm isn’t the centre of attention, as both men search for something far more difficult to define: a sense of belonging and security in a world of fixed masculine ideals. Here, Colm screams for escape despite the love of his wife and kids, while Jay longs to return to his newborn daughter and a girlfriend who gave up on him long ago. 

Trade/Rialto is a story of mutual support and therapy at a price, as passion, fear, and secrets are brought into the light with explosive results.