Very disappointed :(

A Major Disappointment

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

A friend recently lent me a DVD of "Bearcub" that he got in Europe and I must say that I enjoyed it. It starts out a startlingly with three "bears" having a threesome but then evolves into a moving realistic tale of Pedro who cares for his young nephew Bernardo while his hippie sister travels to India. It is well directed and acted. I expected some thing quite B-grade but this was quite charming. Note I believe that the actor who played Pedro is "Jose Luis Garcia Perez". David Castillo who plays young Bernardo is amazingly credible - and there are some mature conversations between him and his uncle about sexuality (Bernardo's mum believes that he is gay too). There are some good characterizations of Pedro's lovers and friends; the babysitter and other neighbors as well as Bernardo's paternal grandmother who tries to gain custody of him.

"Bear Cub" isn't really a comedy or a drama, it's a gay fantasy with a bit of reality thrown in for balance. Director and co-writer Miguel Albaladejo opens the film with a very sexy lovemaking scene between two woofy chubs, but he quickly and quietly moves on (it turns out the sex at the beginning is between two secondary characters whom we never get to know, being used somewhat as comedic subtext). Pedro, a 30-ish gay dentist in Madrid, Spain, takes in his young nephew after the boy's mother is jailed in India, leading to complications between the dentist (who leads a promiscuous sex life) and the child's unyielding grandma. We get a small glimpse of Pedro's gay life (cruising the bars and parks, partying with his husky, furry friends), yet not enough to give us insight into this man--whose health woes are facetiously dropped in. The film is a major step forward in showcasing gay lives which are not so wildly colorful, but the situation with the kid is only a serviceable plot function and is never quite as involving as the adult passion. **1/2 from ****

With a title like this you'd be half-expecting live-action Disney or a Jean-Jacques Annaud follow-up on little Youk's life. Instead, we have a film that goes against everything I stand for, proving once again that it ain't what you say but the way that you say it.First, it's that loathsomely predictable (and manipulative) approach to storytelling, the set-'em-up-to-watch-'em-die. Bernardo (David Castillo) is left with his uncle Pedro (Jose Luis Garcia Perez) while his mother Violeta (Elvira Lindo) goes to India on "business." For reels I sat waiting for something to befall her. No plane crash. No CG-enhanced terrorist bombing. Not even a fiery car wreck. What keeps Bernardo and his uncle together is not death, but that other dependable cinematic punisher – drugs! Violeta is imprisoned for smuggling and director Albaladejo wisely spares us the "Midnight Express" torture route and heavy-handed moralizing.Not since Edith Massey's pleas for a queer son in John Water's "Female Trouble" has a cinematic mother so desired a gay offspring. Violeta's constant reassurance of her young son's homosexuality even wobbles Pedro's lascivious leanings.Any one of the films numerous subplot could be expanded into 90 minute, made-for-TV, crisis-of-the-week melodrama. Grandparents ought to have visitation rights, gays make loving parents, dentists with HIV deserve to make a living, HIV is not a death sentence, etc. The true villain (and victim) in the piece is Bernardo's paternal grandmother Teresa (Empar Ferrer). Infectiously despised by Violeta, Bernardo refuses to visit with her and Pedro respects his wishes until she blackmails him with photographic evidence of a nasty "tunnel bunny" tryst.Instead of transcribing yet another culture clash between gays and straights, each character is presented with depth, dimensionality and a revitalizing lack of sentiment.Teresa would want time with her grandson no matter what Pedro's sexuality. Were his condom-strewn, drug-soaked, sexually free-for-all ways centered on heterosexuality, grandma would have still found ways to blackmail.As in any good thirties programmer, crime and/or promiscuous behavior do not pay and the guilty must be punished. We learn that Pedro is HIV positive and thankfully he is allowed to live. It is particularly gratifying to leave a film that manages to transcend all that in lesser hands would be a ten-hankie male weepy. The director's honestly continually keeps the film from caving in under the weight of its own implications.Throw all the topical messages aside, for this is as much a film about lost love as "Citizen Kane." We exit the proceedings locked inside Teresa's gated burial grounds watching as an older Pedro and Bernardo leave her funeral. Death and imprisonment separate Bernardo from the two women in his life. Violeta and Pedro have come to terms with the impact she made on Bernardo's life, and it is only fitting that the last gaze before the final fade belongs to Teresa.

I loved this movie. Finally I had the chance to see it in Italy, in a small-scale gay film festival. Spanish uncut version with English subtitles. The actors were brilliant, the story intriguing (even though I would not have mentioned AIDS, just to avoid the usual cheap match gay-aids).There is so much need of movies like this, to make straight people understand that gay people are not only glitter, and, eventually, discreet people are the vast majority.Thanks for making this movie, and I hope many other directors will shoot something close to this. Ciao from Roma, AA