Spanish filmmaking duo David Matamoros and Ángeles Hernández swap their usual roles of producers to become the co-directors and writers of his intriguing queer melodrama. Adapted from a very successful stage play, it is the story of two very different married couples who are quite ruthless in pursuing their own desires.
Two close childhood friends Denis (Iván Sánchez) and Nacho (Pepe Ocio) meet up again after having drifted apart several years ago. Nacho is an extremely successful lawyer and he and his wife Carmen (Erika Bleda) enjoy a very privileged and want for nothing. Except for a child that is, as Carmen is unable to conceive.
Denis on the other hand is a chef working in the same restaurant where his wife Marta (Maria Ribera) works part-time as a singer. He arranged the coffee date with Nachos to see if he could borrow a large amount of money to enable him to fulfill his long-held dream of opening his own restaurant. His timing is perfect because as Carmen (and her upper-class family) refuse to consider the option of adoption,, the only other possibility to become parents is to engage a surrogate
Over coffee, Nachos mentions this to Denis, who unhesitatingly offers up Marta to be the surrogate in return for enough money for his dream restaurant. He simply assumes that Marta will agree.
Meanwhile in a series of flashbacks to when the two men were just boys we get the distinct impression that maybe there was more to their friendship. Something that is borne out when Denis takes advantage of closeted Nachos and uses sex as a means of cementing the financial deal.
It isn’t just the two men who are harboring secrets as both wives, deeply miserable in their own way, play fast and loose with the truth. It plays hell with the ‘arrangement’ with the complications of personal desires that have been repressed for so long. They are also dealing with their ambitions and social pressures. Truth seems to be a luxury that none of them seem to want to deal in. Tricks and lies are so much easier even it seems like everything they are planning will collapse like a pack of cards.
It is a thoroughly engaging story even with its quartet of very unlikeable characters (played brilliantly by an extremely talented cast). Using sex as a means to an end is hardly new but in this particular melodrama it seems unnecessarily unkind to bear …… although we have to confess, very hot to watch.
