June 2, 2025

The Dare Project (2018) – Movie Review

Some stories don’t shout. They whisper, returning to you in quiet moments — intimate, aching, and real. The Dare Project (2018) is one of those stories. Originally introduced as a short film in 2005 and later revisited with its characters 13 years later, this deeply personal and quietly powerful indie film dares to explore the emotional aftermath of queer teenage longing, the weight of identity, and the scars left behind by the games we play when we’re still learning who we are.

This is not a film about spectacle. It’s a film about honesty — the kind that arrives late, unexpected, and years after the fact. With an emotionally raw script and exceptional performances, The Dare Project isn’t just a continuation of a story. It’s a reckoning.

Plot Summary

The story unfolds in two mirrored timelines. In 2005, high school boys Ben and Johnny are alone in a bedroom one night when a flirtatious game of dare spins unexpectedly into a charged, life-altering kiss. It’s awkward. It’s electric. It’s terrifying. Then, like so many moments of unspoken teenage intimacy, it is quickly buried and denied — until both boys go their separate ways.

Thirteen years later, we meet Ben and Johnny again, now grown men leading very different lives. Ben (played as an adult by Blake Cooper Griffin) is openly gay and living in New York City. Johnny (Ian McDonald) is married — to a woman — with a child, seemingly having followed a conventional path. When Johnny unexpectedly reaches out to reconnect, the story picks up not with answers, but with tension, confusion, and the haunting echo of what might have been.

As the two confront their shared past, they are forced to re-examine who they’ve become, and what that one night truly meant.

Artistic Execution

Director Adam Salky delivers an emotionally restrained yet incredibly intimate film, using silence, distance, and stillness to let the characters’ internal struggles simmer just beneath the surface. The cinematography is simple but thoughtful, often using tight framing to heighten emotional claustrophobia, especially during their adult conversation.

The transition between past and present is seamless. Salky doesn’t rely on flashbacks in a conventional way; instead, he lets the weight of memory hang in every glance, every half-smile, every unfinished sentence. The power of what isn’t said becomes more gripping than any dialogue.

Performances

Blake Cooper Griffin delivers a quietly devastating performance as adult Ben — thoughtful, cautious, but still wounded. His portrayal captures the subtle grief of a man who has learned to accept himself, yet still carries the ache of something unresolved.

Ian McDonald gives Johnny an almost heartbreaking fragility. His character could easily have been reduced to confusion or denial, but McDonald gives him layers — the fear, the repression, the yearning. Together, the two actors share a restrained chemistry, rich with tension, nostalgia, and unspoken truths.

Their teenage counterparts (played by Adam Fleming and Michael Cassidy in the original short) are equally authentic, capturing the naive recklessness of adolescence, where desire is new, frightening, and often punished by silence.

Emotional Impact

The emotional core of The Dare Project is not in what happened that night — but in how it was left unresolved. This is a story about memory, about the way unresolved emotions can calcify into lifelong silence. It’s about what happens when two people take radically different paths after sharing something neither of them fully understood at the time.

There’s no melodrama here, only melancholy — the sadness of potential lost, the pain of identity denied, and the quiet courage it takes to finally say what should have been said years ago.

By the end, the film doesn’t offer sweeping closure or romantic catharsis. What it offers instead is something rarer: emotional honesty. A chance to breathe, to forgive, to finally understand.

Tone and Pacing

The film’s tone is subdued, tender, and reflective. There’s a consistent sense of emotional restraint, as though every word is weighed before being spoken. The pacing is deliberate, mirroring the discomfort of two people who have spent years pretending a defining moment never happened.

For some, this might feel too still, too subtle. But for viewers who appreciate emotional realism and character-driven storytelling, the pacing is near perfect — allowing the emotional weight to settle and linger.

Final Verdict

The Dare Project (2018) is a quietly courageous film that captures the heartache and complexity of unresolved queer identity. It doesn’t seek to dramatize — it seeks to tell the truth. About shame. About desire. About silence. And ultimately, about the hope that it’s never too late to confront our past — and perhaps, to find peace in the process.

It’s not just a continuation of a short film. It’s a love letter to the boy who never got to speak — and a hand extended to the man he became.

Rating: 8.9/10 – Subtle, deeply human, and emotionally brave. A must-watch for anyone who’s ever wondered, “What if?”