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 primarily about 2 brothers living in a farmland. Alex and Gim are brothers and love each other very much. Their farmer, belonging to a family of farmers, is very rough and exuberant. Life in hills is hard and people are who they are. When Gim tells his family that he is gay, things dont go down so well with his father, who self-admittedly says that he would have killed Gim three years ago, without even giving a second thought but could not since he is his son. This is where Alex finds himself stuck between modern changing world and supporting Gim, while also trying to change his father's attitude. In such an exasperated context is hard to recognize the love hidden behind. The father eventually comes around and embraces Gim, with support of Alex.
Since this whole docu-drama was through scenes and dramatization without any voice-overs; it is a bit hard to believe what's real and what's not. Is camera constantly following Gim, even when he goes to gay clubs? I don't know. But overall the documentary had a very neutral effect on me. I mean, I didn't see a point of making this film. There was no point to prove. ITs a simple coming-out story of a farmer boy and defeating odds of his surroundings and with help of his brother. Mane scenes felt too stretched and this would have been a. abetter fiction short-film.
I wouldn't waste my time on this. Its a done to death premise, doesn't offer anything new. I am struggling to say anything positive about this. (1/10)
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