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 ...
The film is set in gayville, West Hollywood and follows life of gay friends. They hang out at coffee shops, clubs and each other's homes. We meet Dennis, a photographer who often holds the group together and hosts a lot of parties; Cole, a very handsome, charismatic actor and room mate with Dennis who often ends up with other people's boyfriends and can't stick to a guy for more than 2 weeks maximum and breaks their heart; Benji, the youngest member of the group, with a penchant for gym-bodied men, who finds himself going through some bad times; Howie, a psychology student who is known for over thinking every situation; Patrick, the cynic of the group, because of which certain members of the group do not like him because they think he is always negative; and Taylor, who has just broken up with his long-term boyfriend. A fatherly figure Jack guides them all and runs a restaurant for broken hearts and provides them with advice and jobs for some of them who work part-time as servers at his restaurant. Feathers shuffle when Benji brings his co-worker, the 23-year-old Kevin. As most times he ends up staying with Cole who breaks his heart and then starts dating Dennis, who is really not sure what he wants form life. Meanwhile Patrick's sister and her lover asks him to be surrogate father of their baby and Howie is dealing with how to get over his previous boyfriend, a very good looking man who he is still sleeping with but somehow they an't figure out where it is all gonna go. Tragedy strikes when John, who also sponsors a softball team, dies due to a heart attack after winning a softball game.
What's striking about the movie is the ordinariness of its characters and what they talk about. The humour in the film is natural and sarcastic but never bitchy (something that most gay men are known for). The lighthearted tone is set right at the beginning, as a group of friends plays a game to see who can act the straightest the longest. The film also discovers that gay men, like straight men, spend an extraordinary amount of time thinking about sex. And that they can be insecure, unfaithful, lonely and deceptive. The movie is likable and goes on a steady pace but unfortunately it never has those peaks that could take this movie from good to very good. That key line "I'm 28 years old and all I'm good at is being gay" is like an announcement liberating gay movies from an exclusive preoccupation with sexuality.
It is a heartwarming, glorious, happy feel good movie , that made me miss my gay friends a lot. (7/10)
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