The Third One [El Tercero] **½ (2014, Carlos Echevarría, Emiliano Dionisi, Nicolás Armengol) – Classic Movie Review 13,094

Rodrigo Guerrero’s 2014 Argentinian LGBT film The Third One [El Tercero] speaks strongly and fairly eloquently in favour of the ménage à trois.

It takes three to tango. Three’s company. Yeah, right.

Writer/ director Rodrigo Guerrero’s 2014 Argentinian LGBT film The Third One [El Tercero] speaks strongly and fairly eloquently in favour of the ménage à trois. He makes it look like it could work. But, of course, appearances could be deceptive. Folie à trois? Peut-être.

The appealing and shyly hesitant 22-year-old young man Fede (Emiliano Dionisi) meets Hernán and Franco, a gay couple who have been together for eight years, virtually in an Internet chat room, agrees to meet up, and later nervously arrives at their central Buenos Aires building for a close encounter in their rather nicely appointed apartment. The balcony has a great view, also into the neighbours’ flats, and the bedroom’s upstairs. As the night rumbles on, there is a lot of talk, followed by a lot of sex, some of it rather interesting but none of it very exciting.

Hernán and Franco are basically trying to spice up their boring relationship and Fede is basically trying to spice up his dull life. But, if it works, then fine, and it certainly looks like it’s going to work here. There’s not a hint of trouble ahead. At the end, Fede is sitting enjoying in his head rewinding the tape of the night before. He seems to think he has found a new way of loving, and seems to feel liberated. Is he up for more? Not sure. The older guys are happy. They’ve had a good time, and are looking forward positively to more of the same. That’s it really. 

Rodrigo Guerrero and his actors make it feel so real that you feel you are eavesdropping, the viewer is a voyeur on what you might think should be their private lives. The more ‘real’ it is, the more awkward it is. You could say that is challenging, questioning at least.

The dialogue in the script is quite good, really rather good, exploring some interesting ideas and feelings, The acting is also good under difficult, and intimate, circumstances. The sex is tastefully steamy, but it goes on for way too long in a short film, straying into becoming a rather dull vanilla porn video, when it needs to stay a clean and classy art film.

The film’s whole positive spin on threesomes and gay sex feels a bit naïve and one-sided. We needed a couple of other characters to put conflicting views – it’s a film without conflict or villains. That is always interesting to do but hard to achieve. Even though it runs only 70 minutes, it runs slowly, and it feels draggy in places and overlong overall. Maybe somebody’s mom needs to turn up and ask the couple what the heck they think they’re doing.

The pre-title nearly 20-minute chat room scene sets the thing up, and it is okay, but it goes on far, far too long. It could profitably be hacked in half.

The 20-minute pre-sex dialogue around the dinner table between the three characters in two long takes of around 10 minutes is easily the highlight of the movie. In this short space of time, we mainly get to know the gay couple really quite well, and the boy relatively well. The dialogue is excellent here and the performances natural, credible and sympathetic.

But then there is the love making, just when you though the guys had got so friendly that sex wasn’t on the menu any more. The awkward long sex scene, with just the actors’ faces and bodies, in two takes, also goes on far, far too long. It could profitably be hacked in half.

Then again, it seems to be a film about sex, but it is not actually really at all sexy, even with a long sex scene. How’s that then?

So is it a romantic drama? Well that depends on how you interpret the ambiguous ending. Is the boy satisfied or up for more? Are the three going to live happily ever after? We just don’t know. Another film that actually needs a sequel then.

Incidentally, it is perfectly formed, a film in three clear acts, with an epilogue. So that’s nice and smart.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,094

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