Directed by the veteran gay indie filmmaker Luis Miguel Albaladejo and co-written by Luis Miguel Albaladejo and Salvador Garcia Ruiz, based on Albaladejo's 1996 short film of the same name, this motion picture is, at its heart, a pretty commonly-used story: A perpetual adolescent (Pedro) finds himself taking care of his sister's precocious son (Bernardo). Pedro has to make a number of adjustments in his life in order to be a good parent. There are the standard humorous scenes of Pedro being an arch-prude when it comes to drugs and sex, followed the standard humorous scenes of a too-adult Bernardo discussing drugs and sex. Soon, a nasty relative (Bernardo's fraternal grandmother) enters the picture, uncovers Pedro's nonconformist lifestyle, and threatens to have Bernardo taken away. Bernardo is removed from Pedro's life, Pedro and Bernardo suffer heavily, the grandmother realizes she's done something horrible, and by the end of the film Bernardo is back with Pedro.
Pretty standard stuff, eh? But sometimes the most standard plot elements can be transcended by terrific writing and acting.
One key to the film is Jose Luis Garcia Perez (Pedro), a 32-year-old relative newcomer to acting. On screen in almost every scene, he handles his gentle moments with Bernardo with emotion, empathy and naturalness. This is not to say that Garcia Perez is by any means perfect in the role. Pedro is written as a hothead, and Garcia Perez comes off cruel and unnecessarily vicious when he is required to be angry. Additionally, the script makes Pedro's change from sex-hungry, drug-taking libertine to responsible, loving adult seem relatively smooth and effortless.
The second key is David Castillo, the stunning young actor making his feature-film debut as the nine-year-old Bernardo. Castillo is given a difficult task: Bernardo cannot be the typical precocious American brain-child (e.g., Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone" or Dakota Fanning in "Uptown Girls") who is too smarmy, too brainy, and too adult. It would blow the whole feel of the film. And he's not -- which is why this film works. Despite Bernardo's worldliness, he's still just a scared kid. His fear of leaving his mother (Violeta, played with breezy but superficial wackiness by Elvira Lindo) is palpable -- and a bit out of character, until the audience later realizes that Bernardo's father died from a drug overdose and that his mother is an addict as well. Watch closely: Throughout the film, Bernardo keeps touching the watch his mother gave him, almost as if it were a worry-bead.
It's this very delicate, subtle acting that really helps raise the film into the realm of good cinema.
The film has its comic moments (it is marketed as a comedy). But it is the underlying grim sub-theme of parenting vs. gay lifestyle that holds the film together. This isn't just a "modern twist on the old tale," either. In a lesser film, the gay elements would simply have been layered on top and never made an essential part of the plot. But in "Bear Cub (Cachorro)", these elements are key to the narrative, and this makes the film much more of a "message" picture than at first blush.
It is not simply that Pedro enjoys having three-ways (the film opens with a graphic sex scene that includes a shot of an erect penis), a daily doobie or that he haunts underpasses for public sex. The film directly challenges the audience's expectations that such behavior is normal and moral. When one of Pedro's friends rolls a joint in front of Bernardo, Pedro comically lashes out at him. Bernardo comically replies that he knows how to roll a joint because his mother taught him. It's funny, but a too-easy laugh. Later, however, the audience is confronted with the stark reality that drug use is grounds for losing custody of one's child. What is acceptable behavior in the gay community is not acceptable outside that community.
In another scene, Pedro is given a "night off" by his friends. He has sex in public with a stranger. Unfortunately, Bernardo's fraternal grandmother, Dona Teresa (played with lusty prudishness by the fantastic Empar Ferrer), has set a private detective on Pedro's tail. He photographs the men having sex, and Dona Teresa uses this against Pedro. Once more, the promiscuity admired and accepted in the gay community is shown to be in direct contravention of the larger society's moral -- and, more importantly, legal -- standards.
When even the incriminating photographs do not move Pedro to give up custody of Bernardo, Dona Teresa then obtains Pedro's medical records. We learn Pedro is HIV-positive, and that his lover, Eduardo, died of AIDS five years ago. Unfortunately, Pedro -- who is a doctor -- has never told his patients that he his HIV-positive. Dona Teresa threatens to disclose this fact unless she obtains primary custody of Bernardo. Once more, the audience must confront an ugly truth: HIV and AIDS are accepted as normal in the gay community. But outside that community, HIV is threatening and the source of fear-mongering. Pedro, for his part, knows this and hid the truth about his seroconversion status from his patients.
Although it is largely unremarked upon by the film, Pedro decides to protect himself by giving up Bernardo rather than seeing his medical practice destroyed and his patients sue him for distress.
But this is where "Bear Cub (Cachorro)" largely falls apart. Typically, Bernardo suffers heavily for his change in custody. His grandmother sends him off to a boarding school that teaches conservative social mores and English as a second language. There, Bernardo wilts -- lonely, depressed, abandoned. Pedro, too, enters a lengthy depression and seeks solace in greater amounts of meaningless sex (this is depicted as public sex, as if public sex was, essentially, meaningless -- a bit of moralizing the film could have done without). His depression causes health problems for Pedro, and he gets pneumonia. Dona Teresa tries to drive a wedge between Bernardo and Pedro by telling Bernardo that Pedro is dying.
The one redeeming quality of the final 20 minutes of the film is Bernardo's reaction to Dona Teresa's cruel lies. Bernardo angrily tells her that he already knew that Pedro had HIV. His mother had it, and his mother told him that Uncle Pedro had it. Indeed, Bernardo was born with the HIV antibody in his system and drugs and homeopathic medicine eliminated the antibody after a few years.
Dona Teresa is shocked. But, in a way, this scene represents the progressive, loving, life-affirming free-love community that Violeta and Pedro were part of striking back at the moralistic, prudish legalism represented by Dona Teresa. When no one has secrets, no one can be hurt. Bernardo sees Dona Teresa's cruelty for what it is, and he hates her for it. Dona Teresa loses Bernardo's love forever.
This scene is the only thing holding the final moments of the film together. It is almost as if the writers didn't know how to end the story. The typical "feel-good" conclusion would have Dona Teresa admitting her error (or dying), and Bernardo returning to the loving arms of his uncle Pedro. But in attempting to evade that trite trap, the writers don't seem to know where to go.
Part of their answer is to engage in a sudden bit of "lessons learned" that doesn't really fit in the film. There is a sudden shift in perspective that they use to accomplish this. Instead of a third-person perspective (which has been used for the previous 115 minutes), the filmmakers adopt a first-person narrative (each character talking to the camera, reading aloud letters they have written to other characters). The narrative shift is partly intended to make time pass more swiftly (three years pass in the final 15 minutes). It also permits each character to admit their faults (notably, Violeta -- who disappeared from 90 percent of the movie only to return, awkwardly, at the end).
Despite this shift, the film never quite manages to avoid the pat ending. Dona Teresa does die -- albeit after torturing Bernardo for four years. Bernardo weeps for his grandmother, whom he has finally come to love (although it's impossible to see how that happened). Pedro weeps for the child that might have been, for Bernardo has become less progressive in many ways (although, apparently, a bisexual). And off Bernardo and Pedro go...to where and to what is unclear. (Did Pedro win custody of Bernardo again?)
It is this unsatisfying conclusion to the film that is the picture;s largest fault. True, there are other problems. Dona Teresa obviously is a scheming bitch who will stop at nothing (including seducing an elementary school teacher to spy on Violeta's child, despite legal orders for Dona Teresa to keep away from him) to be with her grandson. Yet, Pedro seems ignorant of this and does not realize that Dona Teresa may well try to blackmail him in order to obtain custody of the boy. For all his awareness of how his HIV status could harm him, Pedro doesn't seem aware that his drug use and promiscuity could be used against him. And so much of the film's custody-battle could have been moot had Pedro simply obtained a custody agreement from his imprisoned sister.
However, these problems are obvious only in retrospect. The film does a superb job of crafting a believable world that makes sense, of sneaking important issues into the plot without being obvious or preachy about it, and in eliciting fine performances out of the key actors that create moving, honest portrayals of human beings in conflict.
I recommend it.
