Jess & James - QUEERGURU

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.

The hot sex creates a bond between the two young men although Jess refuses to acknowledge that he has any feelings for James, and so they part company. Neither of them have happy home lives so when James shows up at Jess’s house out of the blue later and suggest they take a road trip together, he immediately agrees. It’s not so much a case of him wanting to be coupled up, but more of an instance of needing to escape his rather miserable existence which includes being pressured into marrying a girl who has got pregnant by another boy.

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.

The three young leads are cute enough and all of them give very naturalistic performances. The scenes of their passion are filmed discreetly and are much more about clever lighting and a lot of groaning than about being explicit. Nevertheless they are the reason why this puzzling wee drama is so watchable that, and the lush green countryside, and a really great electronic soundtrack.