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 ...
I am not too sure about my feelings for the movie. I should feel bad for the main protagonist but I dont because whatever happened to him was partially because of his own fault. And considering what he had done to others, he received an equally bad result for it.Cal is a member of a local London gang of happy slappers who hurt anyone who is a little different from them. Cal is secretive about his sexuality, afraid of his friends reactions but at the same time he also is very attracted to his best friend in the gang. H sneaks out and has anonymous sex with men followed by beating them up. One day when his friends are beating a young French gay student Olivier, Cal cannot take it and rescues him. This is not taken kindly by the gang members. Cal then takes shelter with Olivier and they start a relationship which ultimately turns into love. Olivier teaches Cal how to feel comfortable with who he is. But how long can Cal stay away from his gang members. They ultimately get hold of him and torture him and Olivier. Cal's best friend Jonno whom he liked very much ends up raping him because he feels betrayed by Cal. Once the anger is gone, Cal decides he has had enough and gets ready to move to France with Olivier to be what he actually is.
The acting by the principal cast was pretty decent. Why would everyone follow a dumb girl in a gang was beyond my comprehension. And then Cal having a sudden heart change when they were beating Olivier was also a little weird specially when he himself had been beating people for this. Th sexual tension between Cal and Jonno in one of he scenes was one of the better things about the film. The other big problem was the very heavy Bristol accent which was sometimes hard to understand.
Strictly ok affair. (4/10)
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