Nico (Guillermo Pfening) an out-of-work actor has these wonderfully large soulful eyes that whilst they may not land him the movie role he has set his heart on, they do help him get by in N.Y. even though he is both homeless and broke. Back home in Argentina he was a very successful TV Soap Opera Star, but he gave all that up when Martin (Rafael Ferro) the Show’s closeted older producer refused to give up his wife and children to settle down with Nico his on/off secret boyfriend for years.
When the promised movie part to launch his career fell apart Nico is left to live off his wits and his good looks, both of which serve him well. He is crashing on the couch in one his friend’s small apartment, and being a nanny for the baby of another of his best friends from back home. The latter is much to the amusement of the whole gaggle of immigrant child-minders who he joins in the park everyday.
Nico is feisty and proud and reluctant to always take money for his odd jobs even though he was so strapped for cash one day, he actually shop-lifted some diapers the baby needed. He is to proud to take the many phone calls from Martin his ex-lover who leaves voicemails telling that his job on the Soap Opera was still open for him.
The reality is that at every audition Nico goes up for, he is not only treated as a total newbie with no acknowledgement at all of his vast experience back in Argentina, but he is rejected as he looks nothing like a stereotypical Latino according to NY producers, simply because he has blond hair.
When Pablo (Marco Antonio Caponi) one of his Argentinian acting buddies from back home turns up in N.Y. for quick visit, Nico pretends that the apartment he crashes at is really his, and that his life in N.Y. is incredible successful with his career just about to take off big time. He is such a good actor that he almost succeeds in pulling the delusion off, whilst at the same time it becomes clear that Pablo is actually an emissary for Martin who wants Nico to come back so everything can just revert to how they were in Buenos Aires.
Nico does get one lucky break when Kara Reynolds (Cristina Morrison) a famous Agent agrees to try and get him work. After telling him that this is an exciting time for Latino actors in NY, she still insists that he die his hair black, and take expensive lessons from a voice coach to lose his heavy accent. There is even a possibility that he may get cast in small part in an indie movie, when Martin appears in NY for a layover of a few hours and despite his strong resolve about not wanting to be sucked back in, within a few minutes the two men are making out like animals on heat in an airport bathroom.
This compelling tale of this thirty-something-year-old man going into self-exile like this to find himself is quite a tour-de-force performance from the immensely talented Pfening, who picked up Best Actor in an International Feature at Tribeca for his trouble. His sexuality is not an issue at all, except perhaps when it comes to the fact that as an openly gay man he is ill at ease being involved with a closeted married man, even though he is very passionate about him. This tale is more about his struggle as an illegal immigrant who will never be respected or allowed to use his array of talents because the system and the alien culture is somewhat stacked against him, and others like him.
This throughly entertaining movie directed and co-written by Julia Solomonoff is essentially Argentinian, but apart from the opening and closing scenes, the action very firmly takes place in Manhattan which Nico struggles to call home. You’ll need to watch the movie to see if he succeeds.
