And that was a “hurdle,” Jenkins says, when contemplating whether he was the right person to tell the coming-of-age story of a young gay man.

Surendra’s sexual awakening as a gay man is related with a sweetness and openness that could inspire other teenagers.

A crime scene, one critic sneered, though the ecstatic nocturnal residue is also wickedly subversive: a closeted gay man airing filthy laundry in public pre-Stonewall.