Young men Julio and Tenoch, horny and contending with a summer sans girlfriends, invite Luisa (a married bombshell 10 years older than them) to an invented beach. When Luisa learns her husband has cheated on her, she accepts the invitation and the three set off on a road trip across Mexico in search of paradise. To pass the time, they each share details of their past sexual exploits, creating a tension that either builds towards sex or infighting between the three. The trio eventually find a beautiful playa
where they swim, drink, dance, and reconcile briefly for one final tenuous but impassioned union.
I’m pretty pro-sex and even I initially found the amount of sex in this film distracting. These scenes are praised by critics for being raw and real, a far cry from the “American Pie” variety of cinema-sex in the late ‘90s. While the emotion was undoubtedly there, valiantly grounding the scenes, the premise initially felt unrealistic and pornographic. That is, until the film finished and our characters’ motivations are fully realized. This film’s ‘twist’ (not so much a true ‘twist’ as much as new information) explains the trajectory of the plot in a somber, practical way that left me thinking about the film long after the credits rolled. The revelation also connects the dots between seemingly unrelated vignettes of life in rural Mexico. In total, the story forces you to confront the beauty of life, the blessing of love, the fear that inhibits the experience of both, and the scars of death.