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 ...
Michael and Josh are college friends who lost touch when Michael took off to Japan without a word and Josh settled in Los Angeles. Michael is back in country for the college reunion and wants Josh to take a road trip from LA to Chicago. the 2 guys are very dissimilar. Michael is playful, peppy and a bit vague while Josh seems more settled, quite and lonely type. The exact terms of their past relationship are never fully divulged, it's clear from the sexual tension between them that a longstanding mutual intoxication still exists. They visit their college friend Lisa, who is now 6 months pregnant where Michale recounts the college time when they all had a threesome. Josh gets very mad at this, yet the journey continues. At one point they both give in to the sexual tension between them and spend the night together. Just when they seem to think their life could be good together, they visit Michael’s brothers home where it is revealed that Micael is set to marry someone soon. This pisses off Josh, understandably, who finally tells Josh that he is ready to make the move. It is upto Michael to decide.
The film according to me was quite lame and boring. It felt unnecessarily stretched for no reasons. Te dialogues seemed to be spoken without forethought or reason. Michael is really annoying. He is the kind of guy I would NOT want to take a road trip with. And on the complete contrast Josh is super quiet. But I guess thats probably to show his unhappiness at being lonely and later we find out his hurt at Michael leaving suddenly because Josh could never find a connection with anyone else in life. I don’t think the acting by the actors was bad, but I d blame the screenplay and direction. Also there was very little chemistry between the prime actors, which just completely spoils the fun.
It a slow, unnecessarily stretched film, despite trying to show something new. Crisp editing and make it a 30 minute short film, and this film can hold you attention for far more benefit. (4/10)
Comments
The only excuse was the few seconds they showed the " family jewels " : very poor . At the end the most soporific of the two leaves may be he could do it before.