At festival screenings worldwide, Tom Kalin's Swoon has fast become one of the year's most glamorous and controversial gay-themed movies. By any standard, it's a dazzling directorial debut.

Swoon is inspired by the story of Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, two Jewish law students who, in 1942, kidnapped and murdered a young boy to illustrate their intellectual superiority to others. Their capture and trial led to international media coverage, and to two movie variations: Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, and Richard Fleischer's Compulsion.

But the movies neglected to mention that Leopold and Loeb were more than just a criminal couple; they were also partners in bed.

Swoon pursues the boys' unusual relationship from plotting to prison bars: What compelled Leopold and Loeb to kill? Did their crime have anything to do with homosexuality? If it didn't, surely their punishment did. Swoon is a clever, troubling fiction about history, homophobia, ecstasy, and murder.