Nicholas Verso intimately understands the emotional rollercoaster that comes with that stage of existence where, thanks to puberty, ageing, and this cruel thing we call life, you find yourself as a teen forced into the nebulous space of becoming a ‘young Adult’. Verso is one of the modern great young adult storytellers, having built a career on dark and deep tales like his 2016 drama Boys in the Trees to 2023’s frank and open emotionality of the rather delightful ABC series, Crazy Fun Park. As a writer and director, Verso taps into the emotional truth of feeling lost in a world that you anticipate is going to be organised and structured in a way that will ‘make it all make sense’, only to find that it’s a land ruled by genuine adults who don’t have their shit together.
You might note I used the word ‘emotional’ in each of those three sentences, and sure, I could whip out the thesaurus and grab a ten-dollar word to say the same thing, but the truth is, being a teenager is a fucking emotional thing to endure. Chuck on the feeling of being an isolated, gay teenager living in Geraldton, Western Australia, right during the period of time where a nation is voting on whether you might be able to marry someone who you love or not, all the while you live with your mum and her homophobic partner, well, you bet you’re going to slap on the nail polish, dye your hair bright blue, and absolutely, defiantly reject singing the Nut Bush with your high school punk band.
So goes our introduction to one of the four boys of Verso’s latest series, Invisible Boys, an adaptation of author Holden Sheppard’s much loved young adult novel. We first meet Charlie (a star-in-waiting turn from the captivating Joseph Zada) as he watches the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull engaging in a surreptitious act of stolen valour as he says, with a straight face to the Australian public, that he is proud to announce that the marriage equality plebiscite had received a majority of yes votes from the public. Cutting Turnbull off mid-sentence, Charlie swings into the LCD flat screen with his guitar, using a tool for art to smash the voice of power in an invigorating bout of tone-setting for the series.
The angry and frustrated tone of Invisible Boys is fused in that moment. While marriage equality was achieved in spite of that noxious plebiscite period, Verso pointedly reminds us that it was an unnecessary and cruel endeavour that the Liberal party inflicted upon LGBTIQASB+ folks within Australia. Lest we forget that the federal parliament always had the constitutional ability to pass legislation to implement marriage equality in this nation and that they willingly chose to push the broader queer community through a public debate process which saw the ability for gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual, intersex, asexual, Sistergirls and Brotherboys, brought into question. This was, after all, the era where David Bulmer Rizzi’s death certificate stated that he was ‘never married’, all the while having visited Adelaide on his honeymoon. How dare queer folks want to spend a life with the person they love and for society to recognise that bond as being a marriage.
Sheppard’s book is set a year earlier, making Verso’s choice to position Invisible Boys during this period of national change a pointed one. After all, here was a time where queer lives were effectively put on trial, and you have a group of teens stuck in a remote town where homophobia is rampant, and the acceptance of queer lives is a fantasy. For those grappling with their queer identity, having love questioned in such a public manner throws their sense of self into turmoil.
This is keenly realised with characters like Hammer (a charm-laced performance from Zach Blampied) the athletic, footy star on the rise, who’s barely given himself the chance to even contemplate the notion that he might be interested in boys, with his relationship to peer-determined Hot Girl Rochelle (a suitably Mean Girls level turn from Mercy Cornwall) and the state of his abs being the main things on his mind. When he does find himself shifting to the realisation of his own queer identity, Hammer doesn’t lash out in anger or self-loathing, but engages in an act of passion and affection.
I was fortunate enough to watch the first four episodes at Luna Leederville, a venue that held space for that trademark Nick Verso lighting (shout out to cinematographer Jason Hargreaves who read the assignment and knew exactly how to bathe Verso’s characters in blue, red, and purple lighting that just makes them pop on screen). While I haven’t seen how the series evolves over the remaining six episodes, it’s pointed that Verso and fellow writers Allan Clarke, Enoch Mailangi, Declan Greene, and Holden Sheppard, skew away from physical queer focused violence or aggression.
This isn’t to say that homophobia isn’t present, but rather that the hate that does exist is mostly political or parental, driven by people in positions of power, people who have lived lives long enough where they should have grown into a form of empathy, but instead revert to outdated and harmful societal and familial expectations that inflict psychological damage onto queer folks, rather than nurturing and supporting their existence.
Verso’s narrative prowess draws from the pool of Greg Araki, Derek Jarman, and Aussie queer cinema queen Ana Kokkinos. The collective work of these filmmakers is one driven by a need to tell queer stories, to present queer existence on screen, and to defiantly state that queer folks have been here all along, will always be here, and will never be silenced. They’re urgent storytellers, treating each frame like their ability to tell stories is going to be snuffed out of existence. But, they’re also queer storytellers who tell stories about people who just happen to be queer. They’re living lives and existing proudly. It’s the world that is yet to fix its heart, and it’s clear that it’s currently dying because of it.
Verso’s work doesn’t exist in a vacuum, with the writer-director already proudly positioned alongside his cinematic siblings as the Queens and Kings of Aussie queer filmmaking. He stands alongside trans wunderkind and extraordinaire Alice Maio Mackay, the grand gay vision of Craig Boreham, the honest and fabulous Steven Oliver, and the emerging work of Laneikka Denne and Derik Lynch. These are just a few names who are, in their own queer ways, shaping what LGBTIQASB+ stories look and sound like on screen, with each driven by a collective notion of telling stories that shows their own true selves on screen.
That queer screen history is something that Verso refers to in one of the early episodes of Invisible Boys, with a high school class watching Neil Armfield’s Holding the Man, leading to a chorus of cat calls from the back of the class about the man-on-man romance on screen. When Zeke (a layered and impactful turn from Aydan Calafiore) has to show his hand to his mum, Anna (a taut, motherly turn from Pia Miranda), that this is what his class is studying, she engages in an act of quiet-homophobia, NIMBYing her way to the principal’s office and complaining about porn being shown to kids. In one of the many laughs of the series, Zeke responds ‘It’s not porn mum, it’s Australian.’
The football-level affection of Holding the Man lingers with Zeke, who turns to images of half-dressed footballers and bodybuilders on social media to find images to jerk off to. Verso pointedly highlights how isolating social media and dating apps can be in a regional town like Geraldton, where Grindr-like apps show up the same twelve headless bodies, shirts lifted, airbrushed abs on display, all the while the closeted older men hide behind blank profile pictures, a fear of being outed in a town that just might ostracise them further than they already are.
I’m deliberately skirting around the narrative of Invisible Boys as it’s a series that deserves self-discovery, not least because of the copious moments of self-discovery on screen. I don’t think I’ve seen an Australian film or TV show present so much ejaculate in such a short period of time, and let me tell you, Australian film and TV is better for it. There’s something so sweaty and relatable about seeing messy young adults grab the closest shirt or towel they can reach without a care in the world just to catch a wayward string of jizz. The amount of penis owners who have been in a similar situation and just, carried on with their day, discarding the shirt on the floor like it’s no big deal, is substantial, so getting to see moments of perceived private perversion on screen is refreshing.
And hey, I didn’t wake up this morning thinking I would write a sentence that romanticises the nostalgia of teenage ejaculation, but I also didn’t expect Nicholas Verso and his cast and crew to go to the deep, open, honest, and – there’s that word again – emotional depths that they do in Invisible Boys. Like Alice Maio Mackay’s T-Blockers or Craig Boreham’s Lonesome, Invisible Boys is a series that acts as a form of cinematic community building, giving its modern queer audience the space to see a version of themselves, or their queer siblings, on screen. Invisible Boys is self-reflective, it’s explorative, it’s all embracing, and given it’s a series drenched in the sun of the sandgroper, it’s sweaty, it’s a little bit grimy, and it’s full of dirt and dust.
Invisible Boys arrives in an Australia that occasionally shifts and lurches forward in bouts of progressive politics in spite of itself. Subsequent governments, both state and federal, across this land have each sought to either strengthen the rights of queer folks, or, as in the case of Queensland right now, remove them. If the circular anger that opens the series is anything to go by, the enduring message of Invisible Boys is to not become complacent. To always fight for the rights of LGBTIQASB+ folk and to ensure that they can live their lives proudly, safely, and with as much body autonomy as they so desire.
Backwards minded parents and politically stagnant and regressive leaders make a conscious choice on a daily basis to inflict pain, suffering, and continue the hate cycle against a community that simply wants to love one another. We need to stop being led by people who should have their shit together and are making everyone else suffer because of it.
The anger that exists at the beginning of Invisible Boys stands as a propulsive act that pushes the narrative forward, giving way to Nicholas Verso’s act of love, understanding, and consideration for all the young queer adults in the world. By the end of the first few episodes you'll not doubt want to come back again to Invisible Boys.
Invisible Boys is on Stan. now.
Director: Nicholas Verso
Cast: Joseph Zada, Aydan Calafiore, Zach Blampied
Writers: Nicholas Verso, Allan Clarke, Enoch Mailangi, Declan Greene, Holden Sheppard (Based on the novel by Holden Sheppard)
Producers: Tania Chambers, Nicholas Verso
Music: Darrin Verhagen
Cinematography: Jason Hargreaves
Editor: Peter Pritchard
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