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 ...
Lino, a delivery boy and Mario, a motorcycle mechanic ar the closest of friends. They are both young, handsome, play soccer, and are looking for new experiences to escape the monotony of their daily lives. Lino lives with his depressed mother and his radiant younger sister Annaluce and has difficulties paying the rent. In the first scene, we see that a dove crashes with a statue of Mother Mary and falls down. Annaluce takes the bird in her hands and it flies again, a sign of the gift of life and suddenly she becomes the patron saint of the district. This creates a weird divide between siblings. Meanwhile Mario has been secretly harboring a massive crush on Lino and due to sudden changes in Lino's life, he starts spending his nights with Mario. They have a few fun nights with a threesome with an older lady. The gives Mario courage to try and kiss Lino the next day but he completely freaks out and runs back home, only to find that suddenly his sister has gone quiet. The sudden change of events will force the friends to take different paths risking their fraternal friendship, while little Annaluce tries to get her life back to normalcy.
I have to say that the movie is a bot weird and I am not sure what is it that it is trying to show. Regardless, I actually enjoyed watching the film. It wasn't bad, I just wished I understood the message it was trying to give. Thankfully my attention was strong, thanks to the two very charming leads. They are perfect as the attractive flirtatious buddies but their unoriginal story keeps getting interrupted by a perplexing shift to the worshippers invading Linu’s house and praying to the Virgin Mary. I wish there was more of Mario and his pining for Lino and Lino, with an underlying sadness and desire for something more than his present circumstances. Both actors bring such a quiet misery and sense of longing and sadness to their roles, and these traits clearly draw them together in such a way that is tragically magnetic and fascinating to watch. All other actors are strictly ok, but the whole "miracle child" part of it was a little too vague for me going nowhere. Also, the film's ending is so weird and sudden and leads to nowhere. Nothing is really wrapped up in way that is satisfactory and we have no clue where will all the three major characters go from here. The English title of the film is a weird one, because neither of the two main leads are actually 'Blessed'. They should have just kept the literal translation 'The Little Saint'.
Regardless, the film is interesting coming-of-age LGBTQ film that explores the characters burgeoning sexuality in some interesting ways. The film is strictly ok and with some fun nice scenes, but overall the film left me more unsatisfied and disappointed rather than appreciate it. (5/10)
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