The coming-of-age adolescent-boy romantic drama "My Best Friend" is a first feature from Argentine helmer Martin Deus. In it, nerdy Lorenzo finds his home and high school life disrupted when his drug-dealing dad brings a tattooed kid to the family's secluded Patagonian home.
The new guy, Caito, whose body bears bruises along with the markings, and who displays a cocky irreverence towards Lorenzo's precious books, also starts to shake redhead Lorenzo's notions of his place on the Kinsey scale. Not long after skinny Lorenzo makes it with his high school girlfriend, his daydreams start to wander from their accustomed path.
"My Best Friend" ("Mi Mejor Amigo") succeeds by allowing its pretty teen protagonist (Angelo Mutti Spinetta) — good with the books, last to be picked for school soccer scrums — to dominate the film through a nuanced passive-aggressive stance towards both his bohemian family and its chosen exile.
Director Deus allows the pristine beauty of Argentine Patagonia's bottom-of-the-world landscape to captivate queer filmgoers, much the way it did in the gay teen feature "Glue." His film beams down a similar Latin-slacker, queer-teen vibe to what "Glue" writer-director Alexis Dos Santos pulled off with his offbeat comedy. The deal-clincher is how new face Spinetta manages the same quirky balance of drugs and fun in the sack that Nahuel Perez Biscayart did in "Glue." Young Biscayart rode his debut feature romp into an international film resume.
"My Best Friend," which had its North American debut at the Castro Theatre in Frameline 42, is available on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures. Special features include a short film, "The Prisoner," by director Martin Deus; director & cast interviews; and "Behind the Music."