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 ...
Marvin as a young boy is an outsider. He is bullied for acting like a fag and even his home atmosphere is not condusive for him to be himself. Alcoholic father and an indifferent mother makes his life not easy. Told us in non-chronological order, we put pieces together of various events in Marvin's life. A chance meeting at school with drsama teacher brings new zest in his life as he proceeds to acting and enjoys it. A regional drama academy comes next, where he enrolls to study after growing up. Marvin meets a visiting author Abel, whose book sounds very similar to his own life and becomes friends with him and his partner Pierre and moves to Paris, where they are his support system. Another crucial encounter for Marvin is meeting a wealthy older gay man who takes Marvin under his wings who introduces him to Isabelle Huppert. The wealthy man dies but Marvin develops a bond with Isabelle, who becomes his support and the duo act in a stage play that makes Marvin popular.
LIke I said, not showing the film in a chronological order makes this film a hodgepodge. It blends emotions with uncomfortable stabs at kitchen-sink drama and blissful scenes of sexual healing. The film is too long and it makes you a bit impatient and you wonder where is this actually heading. Marvin's childhood stories feel repetitive after a while and it fails to create the necessary impact. On a huge positive side, both actors playing young and adult Marvin are brilliant. They are a big saving grace, that keeps you slightly hooked into the narrative. Its supposed to be an emotional different coming-of-age story but its way too experimental and too long for me. The “reinventing” theme is weak. Of course, college is where you reinvent yourself. But Marvin hasn’t reinvented himself as such: he was always gay, that’s why he was bullied and now he has come out.
I am sure most critics will see this a masterpiece work of art and something that needs to be cherished but as an ordinary viewer this time, this film did not work for me. (4/10)
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