A complex film dealing with an even more complex subject matter, Tu Me Manque (I Miss You) (★★★★☆) can vary wildly between outstanding drama and preachy afternoon special, often with little grey area in between. But when writer-director Rodrigo Bellott’s script is firing on all cylinders, delivered by two incredible performances from stars Oscar Martínez and Fernando Barbosa, it is frequently breathtaking in its depth, eloquence, and emotional resonance.
Based on Bellott’s award-winning Bolivian play of the same name, it deals with Bellott’s real-life experience of losing a closeted boyfriend to suicide, after he struggled to deal with the prospect of his parents learning his true identity. Here, Bellott’s film centers on a fictional version of the play, as well as delving into the relationships behind its creation. Told in flashback and constantly shifting between present and past, the end result is frequently messy, particularly when scenes move between timelines without any real indication of what’s going on or where we are in the story.
While it can be confusing, stripping Bellott’s narrative flourishes back reveals a solid core built on the performances of Barbosa as Sebastian, the playwright, and Martinez as Jorge, father of Gabriel, Sebastian’s ex. After accidentally talking to Sebastian on Facebook, Jorge travels to New York City to find out the truth about his son’s life — and what exactly led to his death.
The scenes between Sebastian and Jorge are where Tu Me Manques shines brightest, particularly when emotions boil over and Bellott’s bilingual script allows both actors to let loose in their native Spanish. Barbosa and Martinez deliver astonishingly nuanced portrayals of grief, both in a partner still struggling to process the loss of a great love, and a father figuring out that he didn’t really know his son at all.
Bellott can sometimes stray into contrived, preachy, or overwrought territory — including a couple of scenes where Sebastian and his friends “teach” Jorge (or, rather, the audience) about LGBTQ people — but he is also capable of some truly beautiful writing, such as a powerful scene between Jorge and a local priest, as they discuss the possibility that Paul the Apostle was gay, or a later scene between Jorge and Rosaura (Rossy de Palma), who took Sebastian and Gabriel under her wing in New York and has her own experience with devastating loss.
While the confines of Tu Me Manques‘ stage origins can often be felt — literally so, in the scenes where Sebastian prepares his cast for opening night — it also led to some interesting creative choices. Gabriel, for instance, is played in the film’s flashback scenes by three different actors — a nod to Bellott casting 30 men in his original play so as not to allow one actor to become the memory of his ex-partner.
Bellott also makes the decision to portray Gabriel’s death through Sebastian’s version of the play, in a scene that is as devastating and affecting on screen as one imagines it was on opening night in Bolivia in 2015. Tu Me Manques may not be easy watching, both for its subject matter and its structure, but you’ll be hard pressed not to find yourself emotionally drained and reaching for the tissues when the curtain closes and the credits roll.
Tu Me Manques screens as part of this year’s Reel Affirmations Film Festival. For more information about the festival or to purchase tickets or festival screening passes, visit https://reelaffirmations.eventive.org.
The United States is now seeing over 200,000 syphilis cases annually, the highest figure since the 1950s.
Imagine the voice of Golden Girls’ Sophia Petrillo saying, “Picture it, United States 1951, I Love Lucy was kicking off its first season, super glue had just been invented, and there were 140,000 syphilis cases reported across the country.”
By 2000, however, decades of public health advocacy and medical advancements, such as the use of antibiotics in early treatment, had cut down cases to just 32,000 per year.
So, what happened? Why are the numbers worse now than they were 24 years ago?
A Milwaukee school principal has been sued in federal court by a gay couple who allege he bullied, harassed, threatened, and assaulted their son for having two same-sex parents, violating the child's civil rights in the process.
The parents, referred to as M.P. and T.L. in the lawsuit, claim that Kasongo Kalumbula allegedly mistreated their son because of his family's makeup.
The lawsuit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, asks for a jury trial and seeks an undetermined amount in damages.
It alleges that Kalumbula, who served as the assistant principal, and later, acting principal, of the Milwaukee French Immersion School from September 2018 to October 2021, physically and verbally abused the child -- who was in first grade when the harassment started -- and routinely singled him out for discipline.
A Pennsylvania school board canceled an appearance by Maulik Pancholy at a local middle school's anti-bullying assembly due to concerns over his "lifestyle."
The Cumberland Valley School District school board voted unanimously to cancel the gay actor's scheduled May 22 appearance at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, a town of 9,000 people in the state's center, just 10 miles outside Harrisburg.
Pancholy, who played Jonathan on the hit TV show 30 Rock, Sanjay in Weeds, and voiced the character of Baljeet for Disney's Phineas & Ferb, is also an author of novels for young adults, including The Best at It, the story of a gay Indian-American boy and his experience dealing with bullying in a small Midwestern town, and Nikhil Out Loud, about a group of eighth-grade theater kids rising up against homophobia in their community.
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