Distraught Oscar is comforted by his new friend, who’s dubbed Buffy and speaks appropriately enough in the voice of famous animal enthusiast Isabella Rossellini. When his parents give him a pet hamster, it’s to soften the blow of their split announcement: Mom Brin (Joanne Kelly) is leaving, having had enough of dad Peter’s (Aaron Abrams) antics. We first meet Oscar Madly as a precocious tyke (Jack Fulton) about seven years’ age. After a year’s well-received travel on the festival circuit, Strand launches a tiered U.S. But the risk-taking confidence with which he weaves in sardonic magical-realist elements, not to mention his unpredictable yet assured approaches to style and tone, make this a most auspicious debut.

Canadian writer-director Stephen Dunn’s first feature treads no new ground in basic outline. The teenage coming-out dramedy is by now such a subgenre unto itself, so familiar in its usual beats, that it takes a while to realize a rare film like “Closet Monster” is actually bringing something original to the form.

Who plays the hamster in closet monster