Bruno wants his girlfriend back. Having heard rumours that the guy she is with, Pablo, has sexually experimented in the past he decides to get close to him and make them break up, 'Plan B'. What happens is that they become closer and develop into more than just a 'bromance'.
One thing that describes Plan B is that it is slow paced. There are large chunks of the film that focuses on the characters reactions and expressions without any dialogue. There are also a number of beautiful shots of Argentinian landscape that captures the mood of the film. Having reflected on this film and scanned a few reviews, there has been much criticism of how slow and dull this film is. I disagree that this sort of style is boring. Some of the best foreign language films have done this well, with the excellent Uzak as a fine example. Plan B does not manage to pull it off, but there are excellent moments, especially with the sexual tension and confusion over their new found love for each other. However at times, some of the acting ruined the intended impact of the direction.
What really lets this film down and irritated me is the way Bruno becomes quite predatory. Rather than let them become intimate gradually through a mistaken intimate touch or a gaze that went on too long, he went for an obvious move. This being making up an audition where he needs to practice kissing a man. Now this would be the sort of line someone who was more comfortable with their sexuality. I would have preferred it is the film used its slow and suggestive mechanisms to perhaps foster some sort of intimacy rather than turn it into something more tangible like potential lovers. The scenes, for example, when they were sleeping in bed together as friends was perfect to introduce this unspoken intimacy rather than go for the obvious and visualise it.
Argentinian cinema is usually of a pretty high standard and is probably one of my favourite film making countries outside of Europe. Classics such as Nine Queens or the Oscar winning The Secret in their Eyes are far superior to this and I would certainly not recommend this as a good example of what this wonderful country can do.
2/5 - Not a good example of Argentinian Cinema
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