This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat. The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
Parvis is the first generation German Iranian whose parents moved to Germany for a better life. Despite this, most people, whom he meets in clubs, never think of him as German. he is accepted bu his family for being gay but his parents are also struggling to connect with him at some level. Parvis is a bit immature and a mistake costs him community service in a refugee detention center. There he meets the brother sister duo of Bana & Amon who fled Iran and are looking for legal status. Most people at center are immediately wary of his homosexuality, except the duo. The 2 boys have instant attraction but Parvis ends up becoming friends with Bana, who keeps pushing her brother Amon towards Parvis. A beautiful love story starts developing between the two, wit Amon struggling to accept his sexuality and Parvis with his identity, since every sexual encounter with a German seems to end in some sort of racial stereotyping. Their struggle increase when Bana's refugee request is denied and she is at the risk of deportation. Parvis will do everything to keep his best friend and his lover both safe with support of his family.
This film has so many sources of conflict like homosexuality, family, refugees, migration and love, that it could easily have fallen into a melodramatic hellhole. But instead, the film maker brings to us a story about the barriers to cultural assimilation. Its not important why siblings left Iran but what they want out of their life now. And this makes Parvis re-examine what his parents went through coming to Germany after the Iranian Revolution, especially because he cannot avoid being racially stereotyped in his own country since he was born in Germany. The relationship that grows between the 3 people is just impeccable, believable and magical. Bana wants to protect her younger brother at every cost and Parvis gives a ray of hope to Amon, who by the way is the most gorgeous and beautiful actors I have seen in recent times. Amon and Parvis share a totally electrifying chemistry. Their first halting kiss in a bathtub is equal parts steamy and sweet. The way Amon and Bana unquestioningly locate home in each other beautifully evokes a foundational sibling bond, while Bana and Parvis’ relationship may have no romantic component, but it, too, plays out like a falling-in-love, like a simple echo in the blood she shares with Amon. All three actors are bloody darn good and amazing in their portrayal and that's a huge win for any film.
“No Hard Feelings” is a love story, an immigrant tale and a coming of age story for a whole generation of displaced young people. Thankfully the film never goes melodramatic. Highly recommend. (8.5/10)
Comments
Yes he was a bit eccentric, but it was more because he is struggling to have his identity. He is neither Persian or German and this constant struggle is thhe truth of all immigrants, which I can totally relate to.