After his directorial debut with the film 'Kiss Mo 'Ko' in 1999, and after writing and directing several films and series for Philippine television, such as 'Posh' (2006), 'Kambyo' (2008), 'The Man in the Lighthouse' (2007) and 'Antonio's Secret' (2008), filmmaker Joselito "Jay" Altarejo shoots 'Little Boy Big Boy', a comedy-drama with an LGBT+ theme.
The film stars Paolo Rivero, an actor who plays Raymond, and who has participated in numerous LGBT+ themed films such as 'Daybreak' (2008), 'Kabayo' (2023), 'Share' (Salo, 2012 ), 'Indie Boys' (2010), 'Brothers in Law' ('Bayaw', 2009), 'Heavenly Touch' (2009), and many others.
For his part, Ray An Dulay, who plays Bien, has extensive experience in homosexual films. The viewer remembers him for his participation in 'Kambyo' (2008), 'Moreno' (2007), 'The Game of Juan's Life' (2009), 'Ben & Sam' (2010), 'Tale of the Lost Boys' ( 2017), 'Antonio's Secret' (2008), 'The Man in the Lighthouse' (2007), among others.
With a script by Lex Bonife ('Adonis X', 'The Escort', 'Laruang Lalake', 'The Game of Juan's Life'), the story revolves around Raymund Fabillar, a graphic artist whose main concern in life is having promiscuous sex, enjoying strictly casual encounters, visiting as many gay venues as there are, participating in many orgies and chatting online with potential occasional lovers.
However, Raymund's life will be turned upside down due to two key events. One of them involves his nephew, Zack (Renz Valerio), who has to stay with Raymund because his mother must travel to Hong Kong to meet her new boyfriend. The other is Bien (Ray An Dulay), a young man whom Raymund finds at an orgy and with whom he begins to feel a connection.
Over time, Raymund makes progress on both fronts. While Zack and his Uncle Emon, as Raymund likes to call him, continue to bond and build a better family relationship, Raymund and Bien also grow closer and will soon agree to be boyfriend and girlfriend. With them, they establish a series of rules that include the need to be perfectly honest about the status of their relationship with everyone around them and, of course, the need to be faithful to each other through a monogamous relationship. So soon we will see the two men living with the child under the same roof, as if it were a happy family.
However, as the days pass, cracks appear in the fragile love relationship, as Raymund finds it difficult to completely abandon old habits.
And although there are many gay sex scenes, they suffer from being artistic, beautifully executed gay sex. It feels even stranger given that the orgies Raymund attends seem to include an orgy coordinator who acts for the purpose of facilitating role-playing games to break the ice between participants.
And yes, although there are many gay sex scenes, both the orgies and the intimate scenes of the protagonist couple are marked by cheesy moments, silly and shady scenes and gay sexual positions that hardly happen unless you constantly hide your genitals from the camera.
This is one of the problems with a film that aims to include so many sex scenes, whether gay or not. Maybe if the director decided to tone down the hammy sex scenes a little more, if the two lovers' interactions weren't so overacted or exaggerated, we could have better character development to explain why these two guys are suddenly so good for each other.
Because no one can doubt it: the relationship between Raymund and Bien is, at best, superficial and empty, and the possible problems they experience are as tropes as they are cheesy. It is very weak how the topic is treated that Raymund liked the boy enough to bring him home, and without further ado they are destined to be boyfriends.
Then we have Zack and his role in the development of the story. There were satisfying moments when the boy would enter the scene with the typical questions that all children can ask themselves, but then his curiosity could only function in the service of the plot, which made his character seem a little inconsistent. However, in my opinion, his role as the cute, precocious boy is probably the best performance in the film.
The actors playing Raymund and Bien were struggling with their predominantly English lines and so it seemed like their words were clearly not their own. And that just took away from the drama and made their arguments even more petty.
The film draws on the ending of a semi-classic independent film of the uncertain future. There is enough hope for things to move forward, but at the same time, how can we support such superficial characters? Is there enough character development to make us want to become emotionally invested in their conflicts? Would our involvement be motivated to see the characters grow or to enjoy the sex scenes as a form of comic relief?
Well, ultimately, 'Little Boy Big Boy' wants to be a great piece about a gay man's journey to grow emotionally and better understand relationships. But in the end, it's really just a bad plot designed to string together some pretty unimaginative queer sex scenes.
Given the poster image, I was hoping that the element of a boy in the story would make it a more sensible film compared to most Filipino films of the same theme from the time of its release. However, it did not surpass this illusory vision, as the creators were more interested in depictions of bad gay sex scenes, so it was on par with other films that attempted to be much less pretentious about their overall objectives.
The participation of important production companies such as Viva Digital, Beyond the Box, the music of Richard Gonzales and his team, or the photography and set design of Arvin Viola, cannot save a film that, if it had something to say, never managed to express itself efficiently or effective. The end result is a film that attempted to juggle two main plot ideas, but never knew how to marry them or even balance its thematic axes to any degree.