The Astronaut Lovers [Los Amantes Astronautas] *** (2024, Javier Orán, Lautaro Bettoni, Ailín Salas) – Classic Movie Review 13,205

The Astronaut Lovers [Los Amantes Astronautas] (2024, Lautaro Bettoni, Javier Orán).

Marco Berger’s teasing 2024 romantic drama film The Astronaut Lovers [Los Amantes Astronautas] stars Javier Orán and Lautaro Bettoni as boyhood friends who meet again as adults and start to strike up an intense friendship. 

Writer/ director Marco Berger’s teasing, charming 2024 romantic drama film The Astronaut Lovers [Los Amantes Astronautas] stars Javier Orán and Lautaro Bettoni as childhood friends who meet again as adults and unexpectedly start to strike up an entirely different kind of relationship. Can friends be lovers, can lovers be friends, can the straight man go gay, is anyone actually straight or gay? It’s that kind of thing.

Javier Orán stars as Pedro, a mid-20s man, who travels from Spain to Argentina for a summer vacation at his family home, where he re-meets and immediately becomes attracted to an apparently childhood friend, Maxi (Lautaro Bettoni). But their relationship is full of inuendoes, ambiguities and misunderstandings as they try to hide it from their friends.

The only question here is will they, won’t they get together? It takes what seems like an eternity for them to make up their minds, but thank goodness, they get there in the end. Nevertheless, the film, like its two heroes, has undoubtedly charm. There’s hardly any drama, and very little conflict, not a bad guy in sight, hardly a problem even. OK, Maxi’s got a girlfriend and an girlfriend, plus his supposed sexuality, to contend with. But that’s it.

It’s a slim volume of a film, a very short story, but really quite sweet. It all down to the appeal and skills of Javier Orán and Lautaro Bettoni, who play it very nicely, honestly and convincingly, quite subtly actually. This time round, writer/ director Marco Berger reveals himself as an old-fashioned romantic, and why not? Mind you, there’s a lot of smutty, grungy talk that’s not so romantic, some of it quite amusing though. The title is part of a complicated extended sexual inuendo, in case you are wondering.

The cast are Javier Orán as Pedro, Lautaro Bettoni as Maxi, Ailín Salas as Lula, Iván Masliah as Lucas, Mora Arenillas as Sabrina, Agustín Frías as Juan, Camila del Campo as Vero, and Melina Furgiuela as Martu.

Directed/Written: Marco Berger Music: Pedro Irusta Producers: Ángeles Hernández, Alberto Masliah, David Matamoros Production: Mr Miyagi Films, Sombracine Distribuition: Wildstar International.

The films of Marco Berger: Plan B (2009), Absent [Ausente] (2011), Hawaii (2013), Butterfly [Mariposa] (2015), Taekwondo (2016), The Blond One [Un Rubio] (2019),Young Hunter [El Cazador] (2020), The Carnival (2021), Horseplay (2023), and The Astronaut Lovers [Los amantes astronautas] (2024).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,205

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