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 ...
Kevin is a young high school teacher who occasionally participates in rallies advocating for same sex marriages. He lives with his mother, who although accepts her son's sexuality, but is very uncomfortable with the idea of him having a boyfriend or gay marriage. Kevin is occasionally mocked by students and is asked by school head to keep his presence in such rallies to a minimum. Kevin happens to meet an older guy Gao. We find out that he was married but his ex-wife is still very much in the picture. Love blossoms and the two move in together. It's only then Gao tells Kevin that he is HIV positive. Kevin freaks out, gets tested and is negative. But soon, an angry student starts a rumor of Kevin having AIDS and suddenly Kevin has to go around proving his innocence to school, parents, his own family etc.
The film started from love story, to sexual discrimination at work place, to closet gays, to HIV to AIDS. Also, given todays time, I was horrified to see discussion around AIDS. I mean, had Kevin freaked out about being positive and that was rumor, it would have made sense. Being a teacher and a frequent supported of gay rights, is he not aware of precautions that positive people take these days? Is he not aware that you will have to be really really stupid to get AIDS in these times? HIV and AIDS being used in the same context really didn't go down well with me. Also, he has barely ben dating Gao for a couple of months before they randomly move in. That seemed pretty sudden to me, without showing us the evolution of their relationship. Some interesting facts about school administration asking him to not be so open about his sexuality was new and something I wasn't aware of. Also, why were students forever making fun of him? How did they know he is gay? Or was he just a bad teacher, who would have been bullied by students regardless.
I mean, its not a bad film per se, which you may think after all these negatives I have written, but this film could have been so much more had the makers made some informed changes to the script and dealt it with more respect and detailing that subjects like this deserves. (5/10)
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