On 4 MOONS (CUATRO LUNAS)

I took a chance on a foreign film on Netflix and I loved it.  I want to share it with you.  It's a subtitled Mexican film that, for English speaking audiences, is called 4 MOONS.  The Mexican title is CUATRO LUNAS.  The movie is a quartet of stories about love, disappointments and acceptance.  We see non-heterosexual males in various age categories in the stories.

There are two young men in college.  They're friends who discover they have more intimate feelings for each other than just being college buddies.  We see a couple that has been together for about ten years.  These two urban professionals present the perfect picture of a happy gay male relationship.

But there's tension.  Tiny cracks are forming in that perfect picture.  They're forming and getting bigger very quickly.

One takes immediate action to repair those cracks.  In another story, we see a bookworm type of Catholic schoolkid who develops a crush on his male cousin.  The sweet, shy bookworm is cruelly outed.  And we see the story of a senior intellectual, a married man, who's lusting after a handsome young man who seems angry at the man merely because he's old.

When I read a description of the stories, especially with the older gent having the hots for the hot young man, I was going to pass on watching the movie.  I felt like I'd seen those stories already in American films and I knew what to expect.  Well, this is not an American film and 4 MOONS gives us something different.  It's a difference worth watching.  Here's a trailer.

Sergio Tovar Velarde directed and co-wrote this 2014 film.  What drew me to it was how recognizable characters and situations were.  I saw some of my young adulthood in the story about the two college friends.  I understood their situation, the feelings and the heartbreak.  The Catholic schoolboy's confessional scene in church made me think "Been there, done that."  There's also heart in this movie -- heart and compassion, wit and surprise.  The director has a cast of very good actors to tell his stories.  In each story, you see that the male is brave to be honest at some point about his sexuality.  He's brave because there's the risk of rejection from family, church and society.  There's a physical risk.  There's also the risk of self-loathing and loneliness.  It's obvious that the director/writer cares about people.  He cares about the people in his film.  I think you'll care about them too.

There is male nudity in this film.  Front and back nudity.  You will see two men making love.  You will have to read the movie because it's subtitled.  If you can handle that, look for this good movie on Netflix.  4 MOONS runs about 1 hour and 50 minutes.