Jess is 23 years older but looks a great deal younger. His name is also not Jess, but actually Geronimo but he hates using that. He also hates his family, particularly his older brother who ran off with his babysitter some years ago and hasn’t been seen since. What he does like though are boys who look an awful lot like him, and when he is cruising the park one day looking for one, he hooks up with James. When the two take off to a deserted building to make out, Jess refuses to kiss ‘I don’t do that with just anyone’ and then very forcibly has his way with a very compliant James.
As they aimlessly take off in the car that James has liberated from his controlling mother on the rural Argentinian roads it soon becomes clear that neither of them know what they are really seeking, but meanwhile they very casually start to bond. When they stop at a cafe for food Tomas their waiter, who is about their age too, takes a shine to them and offers free food and then somewhere to sleep. The latter is actually in his bed with him and they all enjoy the menage a trois that follows. Particularly Tomas who does not hide the fact that he has a marked preference for James.
The next stop is a large rambling house where a rather odd old woman just invites these two strangers into her home and feeds and gives them a bed for the night. The fact that they are woken at night by mysterious noises gives rise to the question whether there are ghosts, or as Jess asked himself at the very beginning of this movie, is this all in fact just a dream.
It may not be that but it is at least an intriguing coming-of-age tale which has a lot of element which simplybeg for some sort of explanation which writer/director Santiago Giralt is evidently determined he will not provide for us. The boys journey turns out to be not just about ‘finding themselves’ but also finding Jess’s estranged brother and his girlfriend. By the time they get to this point Jess is realizing that part of his own unhappiness is because he needs to reconcile with his brother as well as himself.
Labels: 2015, Argentinian, coming of age, drama, gay
