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 ...
Matthew and Brandon are best friends and form a part of trio. They are all teenagers. When Brandon discovers a gay magazine in Matthew's room, they both come out to each other and confess their love. Unfortunately, Matthew's father sees them together and forcibly sends him to a mental institution. A few years later both the boys are sent to gay conversion camp, where they try to obey the rules as much as they can. When the camp ends, Brandon decides that he cannot pretend anymore and is thrown out of home by his mother. He is 18 now but Matthew is still few weeks short of 18. Despite this he also decides to leave home to be with Brandon. After being homeless for a few days and being very sure that they are not going to hustle in a gay bar, they meet an older man Tommy who gives them shelter and food at his home expecting nothing in return. Eventually Brandon gets a job at the bar and enrolls in college and Matthew starts training at Tommy's saloon. The film ends on a sweet note where Brandon proposes to Matthew for marriage and to be together always.
As mentioned, this film was shot at a very low budget but thats the least of my issues with the film. A lot of time transitions in the film are shown through animation and musical numbers which test your patience. I was just rolling my eyes and fast forwarding the movie to reach to some meaningful point in the film. Each and every dialogue was unnecessarily stretched. The unnecessary long musical numbers were getting on my nerves. The acting was below par but that I blame on the director. I feel the boys had potential. The way the dialogues were being said felt as if some reading session was taking place. Also, a film that on one hand is trying to give a message about coming out and still being a true christian had these out of nowhere sexual dialogues between the two boys which felt totally out of place.
The film needs some serious editing and cut it short to 30 minutes and it would be barely watchable then. Till then, it is completely avoidable, unless you are bored out of your mind and have nothing better to do. (2.5/10)
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