This is your typical indie coming-of-age tale about a teenager, though it’s clearly working with a very tiny budget. Set within a migrant family living in Southern California’s Coachella Valley, the movie digs into how fragile old-school traditions and expectations can be. We follow a teenage son as he goes through the process of coming out and struggles to find acceptance while dealing with homophobia, domestic abuse, and a messy love triangle that involves his own sister. Goyo is seventeen and just about to graduate from high school. Since he’s been a bit more feminine since he was a little kid, he’s always had to deal with emotional and physical transition from his dad, Ramon, who is obsessed with him being "a man." The only real love he gets is from a lady next door who actually respects him for who he is. The family lives in a Mexican community where everyone works on a grape farm, but things get shaken up when a new guy named Lucio arrives. Lucio basically seduces Goyo ...
My first film in the Philadelphia GL film festival and I am so glad I started the festival with this film. There are always expectations when one watches a film and it definitely turns out to be a pleasant experience sometimes. For records, Mulligans is a term in golf when a second chance is given. And the film is based around this statement.One summer Tyler brings home his best buddy Chase for the summer. He has his parents Nathan and Stacey and a very young sister Birdy. Both Nathan and Stacey are young. We are told that Tyler was from a teen pregnancy. Chase and Tyler are best of buddies and love hanging out. They are here to work for summers in the golf course and Chase gets a warm reception at Tyler's house. We feel that there is some sort of tension going on between Stacey and Nathan but never know exactly what because they are always in the process of depicting a perfect family portrayal. This is till the time Chase comes out to Tyler. After the initial shock that Tyler has, he tries to reason it and still agrees to be the best friend of Chase after he discusses with his dad Nathan. One weekend Stacey, Birdy and Tyler go to their grandma's house. Nathan invites Chase for dinner and he looks very upset. He starts crying and just says 'I think'. Chase stops him and says 'I know'. They have a short affair. Affair is wrong word since they genuinely felt for each other. But soon things come out in open. STacey finds out and confronts Nathan. Turns out that she always suspected he was gay. Nathan reasons that this is the first time that he has ever been with a man and the reason he is with their is because he genuinely loves his wife and kids. Eventually Tyler also finds ou. After lots of tribulations, Chase leaves for college after Tyler forgives him and Nathan decided to take sometime off from his family, to sort his own issues and then see what can comes up.
I have not mentioned Birdy a lot in the film but she was the best. She was so damn funny. Her scenes were the best. The portrayal of Nathan was very believable and so was Chase's and Tyler's. The confusions that Tyler goes through, first for his friend and then for his father were acted beautifully. All the main characters were superb. The location was fantastic and beautiful. A very very high quality product.
I loved the film and I am sure you too will. (8/10)
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and of course you know my besets goto film ever is Big Eden.