BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” – Sam Keen
This is really a love story on several different levels and complexities, all done very well. The central focus is on, however, an on-again-off again-on again unlikely gay relationship. Alex (Carlos Cuevas), a very handsome bartender at a local gay bar, misdials and accidently leaves an irate message intended for his boyfriend on another person’s phone. That person is Bruno (Miki Esparbe). After some reflection, Bruno decides to contact Alex to let him know of his mistake and, while talking, the two seemingly hit it off. So, they agree to meet. Bruno comes to the bar where Alex works. Initially, Alex is far from smitten with him as Bruno is older, not attractive to him, and just not his type. But as they get to know each other, each begin to see things in one another that are unexpectedly connecting and touching. They have common interests, yet their personalities clash significantly.
Although loving and lusting for each other, they also repel one another. Each has a different sense of worth and both are convinced that he is not good enough for the other. Yet that only seems to magnify the interest, lust, and love they have for each other. The story waffles and waves between these two sometimes in amusing ways but always in a forward direction. You just sense these two will end up together.
In the consequences of staying away from each other in the interim of trying to forget one other, they each embrace a ‘boyfriend’. Ironically both boyfriends are ‘perfect’ for them in the sense of what they idealized what a boyfriend should be. Yet neither is satisfying enough in giving and getting what the other provides. And the more they stay away from each other, the more intense the fantasy, lust, and desire becomes until it becomes inescapable. Their journey to that inevitability is a joy to watch and fun to see. They made romance feel alive and worthy of pursuing.
However, there are three other parallel love stories that show a different representation of ‘love’. One is with a Lesbian couple that seemingly appears to be content outwardly but inwardly, perhaps not. While they unquestionably love each other, one is not happy in, and consequently, with the relationship. The craving to find her own sense of happiness negates her from having a complete commitment to her partner of seven years. Without that, they cannot maintain a relationship.
On the opposite end of that same continuum is Bruno’s brother who thinks he needs to find himself. And as his wife so aptly states, as he journeys to finding himself, along the way he may lose others. After some stark realities hit him, he becomes cognizant of how intrinsic of a statement that is with all its emptiness. Although their relationship was becoming rocky, it now solidifies into a whole new realm of commitment as he has now realized and subsequently internalizes what he was really missing.
And the last couple, and perhaps the most poignant, is one between the owner of the bar Javier (Pepon Nieto), who manifests himself as a drag queen for the entertainment of his customers. He also gets someone to love in his life that is completely unexpected. The backstory of the man who begins to fall in love with him is tied to Alex’s father. He was a friend of his father before he married his mother. His story is a profoundly sad one and one that no doubt has been repeated countless times with other men in the same situation. It is indeed a worthy story in and of itself.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? The portrayals of all these characters are exceptionally well done. Miki Esparbe as Bruno delivered just enough angst to make his character feel vulnerable. While Carlos Cuevas as Alex brought a whole new level of feeling torn between his intellectual self with his emotional one. They all brought such richness to each of the characters and a depthness to them that made it feel that they were so real. Yet there is one that took it just to a deeper level than I expected. For me, it was Carles Sanjaime as Ramiro. His characterization of this individual was shown so convincingly in his face with his look of regret plastered all over his expressions. He looked like a man with a deep dark secret that he was carrying around, wanting to unburden it after so many years. Living in isolation, he learned to bury it until he could no longer stand it and was just looking for some closure, perhaps forgiveness, and maybe a chance to live life again. His story helps make Bruno and Alex’s story so much more moving as his story is the sad ending as a result of walking away from his love.
This is a smartly written screenplay capturing the human emotions of falling in love with an individual who you cogently believe is the opposite of what you wanted and therefore convincingly use every excuse in the book to make the relationship falter. Yet it does not. Simply because the love seems too deep and on a more visceral level that you cannot so easily dismiss. It makes no sense; yet there it is. It is also tangentially a story of having love, but it is not enough to sustain a relationship. And it is also a story of having love, but not seeing it, and when you realize how close you were to losing it, manifests a spark in you to not ever lose it.
The love becomes a greater bond. And finally, you have a love, late in life, that may not be ‘magical’ but nonetheless allows two lonely people past their prime of being young and viral, connecting and bonding in perhaps the truest sense of the word love.
This is an enjoyable, and entertaining series that presents love not in a singular fashion but as an all-encompassing notion, giving us a refreshing look at how we can see love. I admired this series for its way of making love, in its different forms, so wide-ranging and whole.
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