Other characters successfully round out the effects of Bruno’s indecision on those around him: Soledad, who true to her name is indeed lonely, but who will later get the film’s lengthiest monologue his grandfather, surprisingly supportive and showing that it’s not enough to categorize such issues as merely generational, and his son, at the center of perhaps the film’s most dramatically vibrant scene. The exchanges between Bruno and Fernando, which are the film’s emotional and dramatic cornerstones, are beautifully played from the outset, both actors delivering attractively naturalistic performances through dialogues supercharged with subtext. Two questions dominate from this point: will Bruno figure out which design to go with, and, more significantly, how far will he go down the road towards the black and white which defines Fernando’s comparatively uncomplicated sexuality? Their first kiss is interestingly withheld from the screen, and is only debated in retrospect, a rare scripting sleight of hand in a film which is otherwise as unadorned and well-defined as its protagonists’ often half-naked bodies.
Some wonderfully nuanced, erotically charged cat and mouse exchanges over the film’s first half - Fernando in open pursuit, Bruno holding back - reach their inevitable conclusion at about halfway. Bruno is hesitant about what kind of building to design and, now that he’s forced to decide, equally uncertain about which his “true” sexuality is.
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