A teenager dreams of pop songs, and his best friend, in Mariano Biasin’s tender gay coming-of-age drama.
In high school I had a crush on my best friend. I sat with him when he played piano in church. I was furious inside when he told me he liked a girl. When I came out to him in college he said “so what?” and I cried. Tweak some details and switch the setting from suburban America to a coastal town in Argentina and it’s also the entire plot of Mariano Biasin’s familiar but muted coming-out drama “Sublime.”
Manuel (Martín Miller) is a reserved teenager with messy hair and braces who awkwardly interacts with his bickering parents, sneaks beers and plays bass in a garage band with his childhood friend Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando). Manuel also has recurring daydreams about waking up next to Felipe and gently touching his bare shoulder, the same way the girl who sits behind Felipe does to him in class. When Felipe asks Manuel to help him outfit their hideaway van for a (hetero) sexual tryst, Manuel’s repressed feelings finally, and tenderly, surface.
An innocent gay-indie sweetness courses through this film, especially in the too-short glimpses into Manuel’s romantic cravings and in the final blissful minute, and the young cast’s naturalistic performances make it all feel lived-in and truthful. But Biasin’s script plods as it relies on repetitive band rehearsals and inert conversations to pad a story that only mildly explores young gay desire — like “Heartstopper” but with less charm and fewer stakes. I’d put the band’s power-pop songs on my Walkman, though.
Sublime
Not rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
