My best friend (Mi mejor amigo) - A film review

At last! At last! At last!

I’ve been complaining for ages now about the low quality of gay-themed movies pouring out of Netflix and Amazon Prime. Although LGBT viewers now have more characters they can relate to on the screen, most of the plot lines are pulled out of a pretty shallow pool. They center for the most part on escaping toxic religion, bad parenting, and childhood bullying, and lead all too often to smarmy happy endings. Which is fine. The hustler finds love, the shy kid experiences the joy of sex for the first time, everybody finds their Mr./Ms. Right and homophobia slips ever further into history.  What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong is there are so many original stories waiting to be told that go beyond the trite. Come on, film world, I hear myself saying.  I’ve seen Brokeback Mountain. I’ve seen Moonlight and Call Me By Your Name.  I know you can do it.

Somebody was listening. A 2018 Argentine film popped up today on Amazon Prime that blew me away. Maybe not up there dramatically with my three favorites (and then again, maybe it is, if you can appreciate the value of understatement), but full points for original story line and memorable characters. 

My Best Friend, (Mi mejor amigo), is the story of two teenage boys, Lorenzo and Caíto who have to deal with each other’s vast differences. Caíto gets kicked out of his home in Buenos Aires after bashing his step-brother over the head with an iron pipe. Caíto's father persuades Lorenzo’s father, his best friend from childhood who lives in Los Antiguos, a couple thousand kilometers to the south in Patagonia, to take his troubled kid in.

Caíto is a mystery to Lorenzo. He is macho, impulsive and self-destructive, a big city

Angelo Mutti
Spinetta
(Lorenzo)

tough guy. Lorenzo’s need to figure life out is more transparent and he is almost Caíto’s polar opposite.  Caíto plays

Lautaro Rodríguez
(Caíto)

his cards closer to his chest, at first. In time, though, he begins to open up to Lorenzo. Their differences take on an erotic hue for Lorenzo when Caíto’s acting out becomes a problem for Lorenzo’s household and Lorenzo takes it upon himself to act as Caíto’s protector. You wait for the moment you’re sure will come when they will fall into each other’s arms and give the story’s title its proper LGBT twist. I’ll stop here because the film is too good to take down with spoilers.

The acting is first rate all around. Lorenzo is played by Angelo Mutti Spinetta, the grandson of Luis Alberto Spinetta, the originator of Argentina’s famous rock band, Almendra, credited with being the father of Latin rock music. His mother and father are both actors and he clearly has some big shoes to fill. His younger brother plays his younger brother in the film. Mariana Anghileri, who plays Lorenzo’s mother and Guillermo Pfening, who plays his father, are perfect for their roles. Caíto is played by Lautaro Rodríguez.   He was a model before he began acting in 2017.

100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Available on Amazon Prime

Photo credits: title photo (from YouTube trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjswOrWOYRI&ab_channel=BreakingGlassPictures;

Lautaro Rodrígues:  https://www.vanityteen.com/lautaro-rodriguez-by-joel-beraldi/ 

Angelo Mutti Spinetta: http://pelisfox.tv/actor/angelo-mutti-spinetta/