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 ...
Erik and his partner Balazs have been together for 5 years. Erik is a famous radio show host, a gay celebrity who has a lot of credibility in the city and among the gay population. Having lived together so long, Balazs wants them both to get married. But all this is about to change. An accident leads him off the rails; suddenly he starts to throw glances at women, checking out their figure, their ass and their bosom. This is where he meets Linda, a doctor who is looking after him. He finds himself taking sudden interest in her, to the extent of even falling in love with her. He is confused on whats going on with him and how will Balazs react but he can’t help. Erik is scared to hurt anyone so he ends up telling Linda the truth and she breaks up. But when a few days before the wedding, when Balazs finds out the truth of Erik’s infidelity, he is also heart broken and leaves him. This is when Erik decides to take matters in his own hands. He publicly ‘comes out’ that he maybe straight and that he has fallen in love with the one woman Linda. Now he just has to prove his true love for Linda. Of curse, the film has a happy ending.
The film is directed with comical tones, which makes it very watchable. The whole situation where Erik finds himself getting attracted to women, is interesting. I like the instances where we see that Linda actually is like a straight man in her mannerisms and etiquette whereas Erik still has the sophistication of a gay man. In a funny sequence, Erik even points out how Linda is always leading when they dance. My problem with this film was that it had too much focus on Erik. He was pretty much dominant in every single frame, so much that even the relationship between Balazs and him wasn’t explored properly. Ballads seemed like just a pretty piece at his home. There was no real chemistry between them. The side story of homophobic neighbour and press reporter just helped the story to be taken forward. I wish the film explored a little more detailed of Erik’s relationships with both Balazs and Linda rather than just focussing on him as an individual. Acting by everyone is pretty decent and the direction is also quite nice.
Some more modification and detailing could have made this film quite good. It was still quite a decent watch and did evoke a few laughs. (6.5/10)
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