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 ...
When he was pre-teenage, Brian one day is found in his cellar with his nose bleeding and he cannot remember what happened in last 5 hours of his life. He starts getting these weird dreams and he is convinced that aliens had something to do with this. On the other hand we have Neil, who has grown up gay, attracted to his mother's boyfriend and also his baseball coach, who ends up seducing and getting physical with Neil when he was a kid. Neil grows up to be a hustler and ends up sleeping with pretty much every old fat man in his town to make some money. His best friend is Wendy and Eric. Every time he has sex, Neil cannot forget something that happened with him in his childhood. Brian meets Avalyn, through a TV show where they showed her story of alien abduction. They friendship is ruined when Avalyn tries to get physical with him. Neil soon goes to NYC to do something more in life. Brian always sees this other boy in his dream and he starts looking for him, realizing he is looking for Neil. Since Neil is in NY, he ends u making a very good friendship with Erik. Erik in turn keeps reporting him about Brian and his theory about alien abduction in his letters. When Neil returns to his hometown for christmas, the truth is ultimately revealed, which shocks the hell out of Brian and finally he realizes how he and Neil and related and finally he is able to account for the lost 5 hours of his life. Finally Neil also overcomes his guilt that he is carrying with himself for years.
Joseph Gordon Lewitt does a fantastic job as Neil. His performance is so spot on and so is from the actor playing Brian. As a geeky nerdy, asexual teenage and adult, you feel for him. The story never drags. The characters are all established very well. The film is graphic in the sense that it is not easy to watch , specially the hustling scenes and when Neil is finally brutally beaten. Its very hard to imagine what is going through Neil's mind because he never says so to anyone, even when a positive man approaches him and he goes with it. He always has this blank look on his face. The story is difficult to tell, and is very strong but the director does a marvelous job of it. The film is depressing, believable and marvelous and when u can't decide which emotion you feel the strongest, I think the film maker has succeeded in getting his job done right.
I think it's a really good movie with powerful performances and a great story. (8/10)
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