Fine Young Men

Teenage “Alf” (Andres Revo) has returned to his wealthy parent’s home in Mexico after a gap year in the USA, but he is unsettled. He yearns to go back, even though his lifelong friends welcome him enthusiastically. We start to get an idea as to what is bothering him when he encounters the younger ukulele player “Oliver” (Joaquín Emanuel) whom his friends rather disparagingly, if accurately, refer to as a gay stoner. He has a cousin “Diana” (Arianna Hermosillo) who takes quite a shine to “Alf”, but it’s becoming clear his interests lie elsewhere and that, in any case, one of his friends “Borja” (Héctor Kuri Hernández) is keen on her too. Then, in best “I Know What You Did Last Summer” tradition, a drink-induced and brutal tragedy follows that requires the school-friends to rally around each other and that puts enormous pressure on the relationship between “Alf” and the now distraught “Oliver”. What happens by way of conclusion from this point is both rushed and rather unsatisfactory as the emphasis shifts from telling us a story of two boy’s burgeoning, and somewhat forbidden, affection to something altogether more politically convenient, inconclusive and frankly disgusting. It does spotlight disappointingly homophobic attitudes amongst a generation that one might have hoped would be more mature by 2024, and it proves that there is plenty of work still to be done to promote tolerance and acceptance, but those are more philosophical points that don’t really emanate from anyone’s on-screen performances as we progress. The acting is all fine, but the story lacks for much plausibility and cohesion and left me wondering just what auteur Alejandro Andrade wanted us to take from this.