Main cast: Emilio Dantas (Gil), Remo Rocha (Otávio), Paloma Duarte (Leila), Roberto Bomtempo (César), Claudio Lins (Carlos), Juliana Lohmann (Carla), Gustavo Novaes (Marcelo), and Gugu Peixoto (Gugu)
Director: Caio Sóh
Teos Olhus Meus – this movie is in Portuguese; its English title is Soulbound – looks like some award-winning drama were I to judge by the movie poster, but it’s actually more akin to some overwrought, trashy romantic flick, and I use “trashy” as a loving endearment here.
First, the story. Gil is a very annoying brat. He’s twenty, I believe, and lives in a haze of alcohol, music, and general aimlessness. He gives his poor aunt Leila a hard time, because he’s that moron who will play his guitar loudly at ungodly hours of the night while smoking weed, and causing the poor woman to be caught in the middle of the hate-fest between Gil and her husband César. Additionally, our charming hero also mocks and belittles his girlfriend for wanting to be more responsible. All in all, prime boyfriend material.
One evening, he sulks off to the beach – his aunt and uncle are trying to impose rules in their own house, you see, what awful people they are – and ends up meeting a much older man, Otávio. They get drunk and discover that both share a great passion for music, and they also decide to take a swim in the sea before… yes, you guessed it, the two of them kiss. Gil is all, hey, no homo, alright, and flees. Soon after, César and he get into a really bad fight, and Gil decides to show everyone that he can make it out alone in the big world. He will show them… oops, his friends don’t let him mooch off him, he can’t shack up at his girlfriend’s place, so his journey to independence and self-sustenance is not starting out well. Then he remembers that man he met by the beach, who told him to come seek that man out should Gil need any help…
Conveniently, Otávio has dumped his boyfriend when Gil shows up, so there’s nothing to stop them from hooking up aside from Gil’s belief that he is straight. Well, then I blink and the next scene shows the two of them waking up together in bed. Wait, how did that happen? This is a South American movie, right, so where’s the explicit sex scene? Seriously, though, if there is one problem with this movie, it’s the erratic cuts of scene to scene that often skip over crucial events that should have been shown on screen.
The romance is wildly melodramatic, with the two leads throwing lines that resemble poetry at one another most of the time. I’m supposed to believe that this is love at first sight for them – something that I’m still not sure that I believe even by the end of the movie – and Gil magically transforms from spoiled, petulant brat to a more responsible, mellowed kid due to the power of daddy’s big… er, a good man’s true love.
Still, there is a charm to the whole overwrought interactions between the two characters, and the two lead actors manage to inject some earnestness into their roles that have me warming up to the whole May-December relationship. Furthermore, it helps that Remo Rocha is very easy on the eyes in a hot daddy way, and I suppose some folks would find Emilio Dantas hot too. Also, there is a heartfelt, sincere quality to the script that endears itself to me – even if I don’t buy the romance, the movie itself obviously does.
This brings me to my other complaint: the twist at the end. Okay, I won’t say it comes out of nowhere, as there are some ineptly inserted signs and clues earlier in the movie that are building up to this twist, but come on. The twist hinges on all kinds of coincidences and happenstance, which makes our main characters easily some of the unluckiest sods in the world. Also, maybe it’s because I’m a depraved degenerate, but I honestly don’t see what the big deal is about that twist. So it’s what it is, big deal – I’m all for the two men to keep shagging away anyway, if that’s what they wanted, because it’s not like they would be harming anyone for doing so.
Anyway, I won’t call Teos Olhus Meus an amazing movie, or even a good movie, but it manages to capture enough of that trashy gay romance vibe that allows it to still get under my skin. I guess three oogies would be just about right for this thing, then.
