The Italian word “ciao” can mean both “hello” and “goodbye.” It’s an apt title for the wonderful new movie, Ciao, which is about both saying hello and saying goodbye —and how one man uses the act of saying hello to say goodbye.

It sounds complicated, but it’s not. Jeff, who lives in Dallas, is dealing with the recent accidental death of his best friend, Mark. In reviewing some of Mark‘s email, Jeff finds evidence of what was a hidden, online romance between Mark and a man in Italy, Andrea. They were even planning on meeting for the first time, with Andrea coming to stay with Mark for the upcoming weekend.

At first, Jeff emails Andrea and tells him of Mark’s death, and to not to bother coming. But he learns that Andrea’s ticket is already paid for, so, upon reflection, Jeff invites Andrea to come and stay with him anyway.

Alessandro Calza

Over the course of the next two days, these two strangers bond over, and start to come to terms with, the recent death of their mutual friend.

There are so many things I loved about Ciao, which is currently playing at Los Angeles’ Outfest Film Festival, that it’s hard to know where to start. But most of all, I loved how different the subject matter was for a “gay” film. After watching the twenty-thousandth story of some amoral, but frequently shirtless hustler, or the thirty-thousandth portrait of some misunderstood but oh-so-sensitive gay kid, what I was apparently yearning for was a minimalistic meditation on the nature of grief, friendship, and love.

Adam Neal Smith

And minimalistic it is. This is a movie with a small cast, simple sets, and a deliberately clean and simple filming style. If car-crashes and quick edits are your thing, this may not be the movie for you.

That said, this movie is anything but a pretentious art-house snooze-fest, and it’s not fair to slap the “character study” label on it either — the tag critics give to justify films that, outrageously, don’t bother with anything resembling a plot. True, Ciao is basically an extended conversation between two people, but unlike, say, My Dinner With Andre, the film crackles with dramatic tension and unresolved feeling. Ciao is the story of a love triangle, but with one third of the triangle deceased. How could things be any more unresolved than that?

And yet, despite its seemingly gentle pace, this movie quickly picks up steam and rushes headlong toward its not-entirely-unexpected, and yet somehow very satisfying conclusion. The scene on the bed between Jeff and Andrea is one of the most tender and interesting I’ve ever seen.