Bacon sizzling in fat, a young woman thanking the subscribers of her YouTube channel, a corpse neatly wrapped up in black garbage bags and floating down a river – as clear as the first few images of Travis Mathews’ mystery thriller may be, the connections only become clearer gradually, as if they were emerging from the subconscious. This elliptically edited story, which revolves around a man who can no longer be described as young, is accompanied by an eerie soundscape. Filmmaker Alex lives in a van. He sets up his camera in rural areas in the US, in the no-man’s land near highways. During a visit to his mother, a former alcoholic, she shares with him a well-kept secret. There is also a small boy, with whom Alex develops an unexpectedly close relationship. Director Mathews chronicles a modern day gay existence in the West – from anonymous sex to heterosexual porn in a sex bar cabin, or as a service in a motel room. A small house and a life on the margins of society. Meanwhile, on the radio, we are treated to a steady stream of right-wing slogans against everything that is not white and heterosexual, here in Texas. Desc. courtesy of the Berlin International Film Festival.

Recent high school grad Joey (Lola Kirke, Mozart in the Jungle and Mistress America) is scooping ice cream at the local fair when she meets Rayna (Breeda Wool, UnREAL), a leggy blonde in Daisy Dukes who likes drinking and flirting, and who has a weakness for “them tomboys,” as her grandmother calls them. Rayna takes Joey home along with some ice cream, and soon Joey is head-over-heels in love and lust—even after she discovers that the older woman has a couple of kids and a trucker husband named Roy. Based on the award-winning short film of the same name, this story of star-crossed love provides a nuanced depiction of working-class life in rural America. Director Deb Shoval gets the details right, from Joey’s series of dead-end jobs to the car on blocks outside Rayna’s trailer house. The film finds gritty beauty in the scuffed basements, bars, malls, and meadows where Joey and her friends work and play. It observes the gradations of class within Joey’s circle: Joey’s sister looks down on Rayna as a welfare-check-collecting freeloader, and Joey’s mother desperately wants Joey to join the army, her one shot at college. Tensions mount as Rayna and Joey’s relationship moves from summertime fling to something more serious. While the pair are creative about setting up clandestine meetings—in a barn, the front seat of a pickup, and, most memorably, a tent—they have a harder time imagining a life together. “Would you go into the army if you were rich?” asks a college-going lesbian friend of Joey. “Probably not,” she answers laconically. In this movie, the price of same-gender love is steepest for those who can least afford it. Desc. courtesy of Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival.

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