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 story is about a gay couple Tony and Leo. Tony is a social worker who works with lower section of society (drug peddlers, convicts, hospitals, abused women etc.) and he is very passionate about his job and very dedicated. Leo, on the other hand is a financial advisor and is very much into career and money. They have been together for a while. In one of the many cases, once a woman leaves her stillborn baby in a hospital. While taking care of the kid, Tony gets really close to the baby Dylan. When Leo proposes marriage, he accepts but also asks if he would consider adopting Dylan. Leo is very reluctant because he has barely accepted the idea of marriage. Ultimately he gives into pressure. But because of gay adoption legalities involved in the system, Leo has to adopt baby as a single parent with Tony later applying for guardianship. Tony becomes a full time home maker while Leo is fully focussed on his job. But Tony’s old cases come to haunt him and he gets killed in a gun shot. Leo’s world is turned upside down because he was never ready to take care of baby. In fact, he wants to run away from the baby. But with support from his friends and Tony’s colleagues, he gets over the fear and finally accepts Dylan as his own son.
So clearly the story has enough potential, but where do I even begin with the flaws. The beginning is flawed. We see 4-5 different scenarios completely unrelated to each other before we can even figure out what’s going on. And the camera angles are so weird with completely focussing on head shots of the characters that it gets very distracting and flat and annoying. The photography is very uneven. The lead actors had potential but the director IMO didn’t do a good job of extracting performances from them. An independent film has its constraints and I do understand that but there is no excuse for bad timing and really poor editing. Talking of which, the film is pretty long and totally lacks professional creativity. The makers could have gone into the details of bureaucracy of adoption for gay parents but instead they focus on personal tussle between the couple. A welcome effort in terms of story but totally thumbs down for execution.
Watch it only if you don’t have anything else better to see or if you have money to use the same story and adopt it better. (4/10)
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