Went in with zero expectations, but this charming old comedy turned out to be a genuinely fun ride. Combining gay characters, a pride parade, and a heist plot in one movie sounds like a recipe that could easily fall apart, but when it's pulled off right, like it is here, you end up with something that feels satisfying and delivers exactly the kind of simple entertainment it promises. The setting is Chez Nouz, a gay cafe tucked into the heart of Amsterdam, run by an older guy named Adje who acts as a stand in father figure for Bertie, the bar's main drag performer, a guy who never actually knew his real dad and has spent years fantasizing that he might secretly be the son of some famous Dutch singer. Their little makeshift family also includes Babette, the straight waitress, and Rachid, a regular who Adje took under his wing and gave a room to after his own family kicked him out for being gay. The bar's other regulars include Peter-Jan, a good looking gay lawyer, and Gijs, a...
We meet Roberto Enríquez, a teenage dreamer in a small town who suffers constant episodes of harassment and who deals with a family situation of incomprehension in which his only support is his grandfather. We follow his journey as a teenager in school, his bullying, to his first few sexual encounters including rape in a park. Told to us through a non-linear fashion, we see his journey to present days as a successful writer and a pop icon figure, who constantly struggled with his body. We see multiple characters throughout the journey most importantly his castrating mother, loving grandfather, stifling father and ever faithful girlfriend Lola. Events are shown of his growth from an awkward teen, to a confident adult to a budding writer, who uses his real life story to write a book and share with a larger audience. We see a silver living when he finally meets the man of dreams who loves him for who is.
The miniseries tells the story in a tone of dramatic comedy, showing the protagnost's fight against all kinds of discrimination. The autobiography is emotional and fun, and is fundamentally focused on his fight against homophobia and with gordophobia, since Bop's body did not enter into the conventional beauty canons of society, in fact, that detail is constantly underlined, coming to focus only on that, so he leaves his achievements as a person out of the conversation. Through non-linear narrative style, the series tries to show us parallels between events in different timelines. The two main actors playing the teenage and adult version are so good that they almost look alike in many scenes. I have to hand it to casting of these actors. A very interetsing approach was to never show us the father's face. Just as the parent invisibilizes the son, now the son prefers to blur him from the story. The series proposes several narratives about the fear, pain and loneliness that exist in life, especially when we are misunderstood beings. The show is brief, emotional and sensitive, despite showing raw events of a person, but, in the end, despite his many mistakes, his narrative freshness weighs more, and ends up offering something new. (6.5/10)
Comments